Brief Update: Clinical Scope of Practice

June 1, 2022

Good morning,

Yesterday, the Assembly bill, A6008E that was introduced late Friday night, moved to the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, setting it up for a vote in committee that, if passed, will immediately move it to the floor of that house for further action.

Yesterday, the NYS Council disseminated our Memo of Support for the ‘same as’ bills, A6008E/S9449, to each and every member of the Assembly and Senate, in support of immediate passage before lawmakers go home.  As such, we were gratified to see the Assembly bill move forward swiftly. Traditionally, the bill would first go the Higher Ed Committee under the leadership of Assemblywoman Deborah Glick.  It is our understanding the Assemblywoman has signed off on the bill, but in this case, it was moved directly to Ways & Means, bypassing the Higher Ed Committee.

Lawmakers are expected to remain in Albany beyond the scheduled end of session (tomorrow, June 2).

We continue to push the state agencies on our concerns regarding our second scope of practice problem that is related to unlicensed staff.  The state agencies have yet to schedule a meeting with advocates, as we requested last week.  They appear to be preparing for such a meeting, and we believe they have prepared guidance documents to guide the field after June 24 (current sunset of the exemption for our workforce), however we have not seen those guidance documents, and we are pressing for an immediate response from our state agency leaders.