Update from Licensing Board!

A Word from the State Licensing Board Executive Officer ~ Lucy Richards ~

The 2019 legislative session is one-third finished. The Board of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists did not propose any legislation for the 2019 Session. It did support HB 270 which was proposed by MSHA and would have licensed speech-language and audiology assistants while repealing the "registration" process. However, HB 270 was tabled in the House Business and Labor Committee on 2/8. Based on my communication with MSHA's lobbyist, Abby St. Lawrence, it is my understanding that MSHA is not planning to try get the bill off the table which means it will officially die in process in the next few weeks. MSHA plans to work more with the licensing board and the University of Montana between now and the next session. What does this mean for licensed speech-language pathologists and audiologists who supervise aides? Assistants will not become licensed after this session and the registration process for unlicensed aides will continue as it has the past several years. Aide registration will open on September 1, 2019, and end on October 31, 2019. Any licensee supervising an aide(s) during that time period must register the aide(s) by no later than October 31, 2019. This also means that the board's most recent updates to its aide supervision rules will remain as they were last updated on 11/17/18. Those updates include the ability for supervisors to "telesupervise" aides using asynchronous and synchronous methods (see ARM Title 24, chapter 222, subchapter 7 for rules pertaining to aides). Please contact me at dlibsdslp@mt.gov or 406-841-2394 if you have any questions. I have been very busy this the session and have recently taken over a fourth licensing board. So please be patient with me if I do not get back to you right away. I am currently triaging all my calls and e-mails and hope to be back to my normal response time after the session ends.