Legislative Priorities

WSPA Supports:

1. Prescriptive Authority of Psychologists

A bill will be introduced during this session. WSPA will provide support to the RxP workgroup, Lobbyist, and Director of Professional Affairs via the Legislative Advocacy Committee (LAC), Grassroots Advocacy group, and United Psychologists Political Action Committee (UP-PAC) to obtain support of Washington State psychologists and stakeholders, including behavioral health organizations/agencies and legislators.

• The Association of American Medical Colleges predicts a doctor shortage of between 54,000 and 139,000 doctors nationwide by 2033, including shortfalls in both primary care and specialty providers including psychiatrists.
• This shortage will exacerbate the existing challenges consumers already face when trying to access psychiatric prescribing.
• Establishing a prescribing psychology credential is part of the long-term solution for increasing access to care for the State of Washington.
• A prescribing psychologist is a fully independent licensed psychologist who has received specific training and has been credentialed to prescribe psychotropic medications.

2. Provider Contract Compensation

WSPA is committed in it’s support and advocacy for increased compensation to providers which is commensurate with the consumer price index increases for insurance contracts between a health carrier and a health care provider who is not employed or affiliated with a hospital or large hospital system.

• Independent private practice healthcare providers are struggling to stay in business. The costs to operate and maintain a healthcare practice continues to rise due to increased labor costs, inflation and costs associated with electronic health records, prior authorizations, etc.
• By requiring health carriers to increase provider compensation (parity) annually based on the consumer price index (CPI-U) would increase access to care, remove economic barriers to entering the profession of healthcare, increase the quality of care, minimize service gaps and attract and retain additional providers statewide. 

3. Mental Health Parity

WSPA supports and champions legislative provisions aimed at strengthening and increased enforcement of the Washington’s Mental  Health Parity Act (2007), including  greater alignment with the new (2024) federal  Mental Health Parity and Addiction EquityAct (MHPAEA) Final Rules. Issues of notable  importance include provider network adequacy, and parity concerning in-network reimbursement.

• A key focus of the Final Rules is to ensure that non-quantitative treatment limitations (NQTLs) related to provider network composition and reimbursement rates do not impose greater restrictions on access to MH/SUD  benefits than they do for medical/surgical benefits.
• Additionally, there is a directive to collect, evaluate/assess, publicly share, and act on all relevant data measures of network composition, such as in-network and out-of-network utilization data, network adequacy measures, and provider reimbursement rates for comparable services.