Healthcare (Medical Licensing)

Dietitian Licensure Compact. Authorizes Virginia to be a signatory to the Dietitian Licensure Compact in order to increase public access to dietetics services and provide opportunities for interstate practice by licensed dietitians who meet uniform requirements. The Compact is presently in effect, as it has reached the enactment threshold of seven member states.

Dentist and Dental Hygienist Compact; criminal background check. Establishes the procedure by which the Board of Dentistry shall fulfill the criminal background check requirement of the Dentist and Dental Hygienist Compact. The bill requires applicants for compact-eligible licensure to provide fingerprints and personal identifying information for a criminal background check, directs the Central Criminal Records Exchange to disseminate criminal history information obtained to the Board, and establishes the process by which an applicant may obtain their criminal history record in the event that such applicant disputes the criminal history information on which a denial of licensure is based.

Positive behavior support facilitators; scope of practice, supervision, and qualifications. Adds positive behavior support facilitators to the professions governed by the Board of Counseling. The bill establishes qualification, scope of practice, and supervision requirements and directs the Board of Counseling to adopt regulations governing positive behavior support facilitators. The bill also directs the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services and the Department of Medical Assistance Services to promulgate regulations that align with the regulations adopted by the Board of Counseling in accordance with the bill.

Boards of Medicine and Nursing; advanced practice registered nurses; feasibility of temporary or provisional licensure; report. Directs the Boards of Medicine and Nursing to assess the feasibility of implementing a temporary or provisional licensure pathway for advanced practice registered nurses.

Recovery residences; regulations. Establishes certain requirements for recovery residences and directs the State Board of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (the Board) to promulgate regulations to establish minimum certification standards for recovery residences. The bill also requires that the regulations promulgated by the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (the Department) related to the certification of recovery residences include provisions that no recovery residence, or operator, employee, or agent of a recovery residence, may require a resident to participate in medical or psychological services, including clinical substance use treatment, that such recovery residence receives financial benefit from, either directly or indirectly, as a condition of entering or continuing residence at such recovery residence. The bill requires the Department to monitor credentialing agencies providing credentials to recovery residences to ensure criteria related to certification comply with regulations and specifies that no such credentialing agency shall provide credentials to a recovery residence that is owned or operated by an individual who is employed by or in a position of authority at such credentialing agency, or an immediate family member of any such individual. The bill also requires that referrals to recovery residences made by the Department, any agency of the Commonwealth, or by a court may only be made to recovery residences that are certified. This bill is identical to HB 931.

Practice of radiologic technology; licensure exceptions. Permits a person employed or engaged by a hospital, health system, or urgent care center that is affiliated with a hospital or health care system to practice within the scope of his employment as a radiologic technologist, radiologic assistant, or radiologic technologist, limited without obtaining a license. Under current law, such exception only applies to radiologic technologists who are employees of a hospital. The bill exempts the initial promulgation of regulations pursuant to the bill by the Board of Medicine from the requirements of the Administrative Process Act. The bill has an expiration date of July 1, 2029.

Board of Social Work; Doctor of Social Work degree; education requirements for licensure. Directs the Board of Social Work to amend its regulations to specify that a Doctor of Social Work degree satisfies the education requirements for certain social work licenses.

Foreign-trained chiropractors; licensure by endorsement. Permits the Board of Medicine to issue a license to practice chiropractic to a foreign-trained chiropractor who meets certain requirements.

Board of Medicine; office-based buprenorphine treatment; counseling. Directs the Board of Medicine to amend its regulations regarding office-based buprenorphine treatment to require providers to offer counseling or referral to counseling to each patient as clinically necessary and mutually agreed-upon. The bill specifies that a patient's refusal of counseling does not preclude the patient from receiving office-based buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorder. This bill is a recommendation of the Joint Commission on Health Care and is identical to HB 712.

Collaborative agreements; practitioners; diagnosis. Removes registered nurses from the list of practitioners whose diagnoses may form the basis of drug therapy conducted pursuant to a collaborative agreement between a practitioner and a pharmacist.