One of the many factors complicating our clinical work in the COVID-19 environment is cross-jurisdictional licensure. During the age of COVID-19 can you continue teletherapy across state lines if your client now resides in a state where you’re not licensed? If you’re a pre-licensed clinician (postdocs, interns, externs) who recently moved to another state, what services can you continue to provide? And what do these circumstances mean for pre-licensed supervision hours?
As you may know, when a client and clinician are located in different states, each state has jurisdiction over the therapeutic relationship. Of course, multiple states means multiple regulatory systems, many of which are in flux during this time. In some cases due to the COVID-19 emergency, states have eased requirements, allowing all licensed mental health clinicians in good standing to practice teletherapy across state lines. In other cases, states require clinicians to apply for permission to practice in-state. And, in a number of other states, clinicians continue to be required to be licensed where they’re located and where the client is located.
To help navigate these waters, we’ve prepared a chart summarizing licensure requirement changes for medical and behavioral health providers on a state-by-state basis. We also included a link to each state’s COVID-19 resource page.
Changes to Licensure Requirements for Out-of-State Providers
For more resources on supporting your clients during the transition to online therapy, read our post on preparing for teletherapy.
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P.S. We are interested in hearing how clinicians are managing the transition to teletherapy during the COVID-19 emergency so that we can find more ways to help. Please consider completing this five minute questionnaire here. If we receive a large sample size, we plan to share these results with our TSS community. We’d love to hear your feedback.