Oregon Council of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Oregon Council of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

The Oregon Medical Association

The Oregon Psychiatric Association (pending)

The Oregon Pediatric Society

The Oregon Association of Orthopedists

The Oregon Academy Ophthalmology

OPPOSES SB 1046-A

SB 1046-A would allow the Oregon Medical Board and the Oregon Board of Psychologist Examiners to create a certificate for “Prescribing Psychologists” that would allow them to prescribe.

·  We believe that this is a patient safety issue. We remain concerned that this legislation does not allow for adequate physician supervision of new prescribing psychologists. Only two other states allow psychologists to prescribe drugs. Both of those states allow for physician concurrence or physician supervision of new prescribing psychologists.

·  This bill only requires “collaboration” between the prescribing psychologist and the “health care professional” who oversees the patient’s medical care. If the physician disagrees with the prescribing psychologist, there is nothing in the legislation that allows the physician to override that decision. This is LESS oversight than the two other states that currently allow psychologist prescribing.

·  Additionally, without clear supervision we remain concerned that the loosely defined collaboration could lead to liability issues with the bulk of the liability falling on the physician.

·  We are also concerned that “health care professional” is undefined in the legislation and that the Committee on Prescribing Psychologists is unbalanced. The committee includes four psychologists, but only three physicians. For equal input and consideration the committee should include equal representatives and should also include some consumer representation.

·  While the original version of this bill was facilitated in an interim workgroup, the OMA was not included in that workgroup. The OMA provided comments outlining our concerns with the workgroup draft during the public comment period. None of our concerns were considered or addressed in the final workgroup product.

Finally, expanding prescriptive authority should not be undertaken without adequate training or supervision. While this issue has been before the legislature for several sessions, the specifics in this version of the bill are new. We believe that this issue remains an important one that shouldn’t be rushed through a 4 week supplemental session. The final amendments for this bill received NO public hearing. Please vote NO on this version of SB 1046-A.