Evan Dumas 

You’re listening to Group Practice Tech, a podcast by Person Centered Tech, where we help mental health group practice owners ethically and effectively leverage tech to improve their practices. I’m your co-host, Evan Dumas.

 

Liath Dalton 

And I’m Liath Dalton, and we are Person Centered Tech.

 

Liath Dalton 

This episode is brought to you by Therapy Notes. Therapy Notes is a robust online practice management and electronic health record system to support you in growing your thriving practice. Therapy Notes is a complete practice management system with all the functionality you need to manage client records, meet with clients remotely, create rich documentation, schedule appointments and bill insurance all right at your fingertips. To get two free months of Therapy Notes as a new Therapy Notes user go to therapynotes.com and use promo code PCT.

 

Evan Dumas 

Hello, and welcome to Episode 616: Licensure Compacts and Portability Update.

 

Liath Dalton 

We have some truly exciting updates to provide. Because after a period of there being not a lull but not a lot of activity or visible activity and progress, particularly in terms of both the Counseling Compact and the Social Work Licensure Compact, there have been substantive changes and updates.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm.

 

Liath Dalton 

So we’re excited to share those. And we’ve been deep in the realm of licensure compact news, temporary practice permission updates, as well as the access MFTs effort, which is different to a compact, but is the Marriage and Family Therapist mechanism for managing basically cross-jurisdictional or multi-jurisdictional practice.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

All because, this Friday at the time of recording is going to be the live CE presentation of our cross-jurisdictional CE training. And the 2026 edition is Legal-Ethical Cross-Jurisdictional Telemental Health in 2026 Interstate International and Complex Practice Considerations.

 

Liath Dalton 

So, after we talk through the exciting updates that we have, there are a few related pieces that speak to those complex practice considerations, or really the fact that permission to practice is only the beginning, the first step of determining what is necessary for legal, ethical, cross-jurisdictional, and multi-jurisdictional practice.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm.

 

Liath Dalton 

Okay, so let’s get into it, and start with the biggest news first, which is the Counseling Compact.

 

Evan Dumas 

Oh, yeah,

 

Liath Dalton 

It is now live!

 

Evan Dumas 

It is! In more than just two states.

 

Liath Dalton 

Yes. So September 30, 2025 is when it first went live. But as Evan just said, it was only live in two member states, those being Arizona and Minnesota. Which basically means that at the time it went live, if you lived in and were licensed in Minnesota, you could apply for compact privileges in Arizona, and vice versa. So pretty limited in impact, at least on the national scale, right?

 

Liath Dalton 

But now, there are five states in which it is live. The additional states are Georgia, Louisiana, and Ohio. And the Georgia going live date was yesterday June second.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm, yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

So very fresh, hot off the press news. And basically, at this point in time, there are 38 states, plus the District of Columbia, that have enacted it. Four have pending legislation, but as we said, there are only five states in which it is live. There is not through the Counseling Compact, a timeline or ETA for when the remaining 33 states in which it’s been enacted are going to go live. Basically, they just add the news of it going live once the sort of back-end processes and systems for that particular state have have all been successfully put in place or completed.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm. And there’s no transparency for that, so we just, we just wait.

 

Liath Dalton 

Yep, exactly. Now, the other big news is that the Social Work Licensure Compact has just provided a updated ETA for going live.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm.

 

Liath Dalton 

So, as of the end of May 2026 the ETA for going live is nine to 12 months.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

And I will say that the Social Work Licensure Compact has moved at a much more rapid pace since its inception than either the Counseling Compact or PSYPACT.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

So the fact that they are giving a specified time frame for when it should be going live makes me hopeful that we will have the actual date that that occurs be at least in pretty close proximity to that announced time frame.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm, hopefully.

 

Liath Dalton 

Yeah, fingers crossed. And now, for the Social Work Licensure Compact, currently there are 32 states in which it has been enacted, and four have, an additional four have pending legislation.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm, yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

When we talked about this last year, there were only 23 states in which it had been enacted.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

So we’ve added nine. It’s awesome to see that significant growth.

 

Evan Dumas 

Totally.

 

Liath Dalton 

The next thing to talk about, in sort of scope of magnitude, is the Access MFTs portability effort. Because now there have been an additional 10 states in which legislation has been enacted. In fact, just a few days ago it was enacted in Minnesota, and Governor Walz signed it into law. So there are now 16 states that have enacted that portability legislation. It, there is pending legislation in additional three states, California included. Which is a really big deal.

 

Evan Dumas 

Oh my gosh, yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

Because California has historically been really restrictive in terms of allowing outside practice.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm, yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

And there are a lot of reasons for that, but it’s particularly interesting, in part, because there is such a high concentration of MFTs in California.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

So that’s a really big deal. And then in addition to those 16 states with enacted legislation, and three pending, there are an additional seven states that have, not specifically the Access MFTs legislation enacted, but have very friendly portability laws, and which are included in the Access MFTs map.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah. And Liath, are these portability-friendly laws the same thing as rights for temporary practice?

 

Liath Dalton 

No, they are not. The portability basically means that you can apply for a full license in any of those states.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

And, but it’s removing the barriers that were otherwise present in terms of, you know, qualifications, hours, exam differences that were making obtaining a full license in another state a challenge.

 

Liath Dalton 

So you have to apply.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

So basically any MFT with a, that’s fully licensed and has a license in good standing is able to obtain a full license through through application in any of these states that have enacted the Access MFTs legislation.

 

Liath Dalton 

Yep. Okay. Now, last but not least, only last, because it’s the least significant change, is that there are a few more states in which the PSYPACT, the Psychology Compact, has been enacted. So now there are 45 states in which it has been enacted and 43 in which it’s effective. So, pretty broad coverage there. But that’s three three new enacted, one more effective. So seeing growth and expanded coverage through that as well.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm, yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

Now the big thing that I wanted to talk about in relation to these compact privileges is that physical location in your member home state is required both under the under PSYPACT and under the Counseling Compact, when delivering care to another member state of the compact under the compact privileges. So that means if you have compact privileges, and you travel outside of your home member state and state of licensure that you cannot provide teletherapy anywhere other than back to your home member state,

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah, yep.

 

Liath Dalton 

But you can’t, can’t provide, aren’t legally authorized to provide care to other, other member states.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah, so this isn’t an out for you folks who want to like move overseas, live overseas, or just travel a lot. If it’s not involved in the compact.

 

Liath Dalton 

Exactly. So we’re bringing this up in part because we’ve been getting a lot of inquiries from folks who are wanting to travel, whether that be for an extended, you know, not sabbatical from work, but sabbatical from home, home life, or to relocate abroad, and have been initially sort of predicating what they think their business continuity and model is going to be on thinking that the compact privileges will be something that they can leverage to expand their sort of service delivery area, if you will.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm.

 

Liath Dalton 

So it’s really important to be aware of that restriction and limitation and requirement. We’re often talking about the fact that if you are outside the state where the client is physically located and where you are licensed that insurance is very unlikely to cover it, and that typically insurance requires physical presence in in that same state, so when it comes to providing care back to the US as a clinician abroad, generally the location restriction implications have been focused on needing to be private pay versus insurance based, but the area in which you can practice also is really an impactful consideration, so we wanted to draw attention to those two important facts.

 

Liath Dalton 

It does not look as though the Social Work Licensure Compact will have that physical location restriction. And for MFTs under the Access MFTs licensure portability piece, because that model is for full licensure, and we have yet to see a single state require the clinician be physically located within the state that they are licensed while delivering care to clients located in that state under their license, that also is not going to be an impedance for folks who want to be in another state or out of the country.

 

Liath Dalton 

So there’s some real differences with with significant consequence or implications between the different professions. So those are important to take into account. And we’re going to be getting into all of these details, and much more in our 2026 cross- jurisdictional CE training.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

We’re really moving to go beyond the foundational basics of how cross-jurisdictional practice works, and how what the different pathways to permission to practice are, and look at all of the following considerations once permissibility has been determined, such as the documentation and emergency management requirements, if working with minors, age of consent or assent, and parental and guardian rights of access, and all of those details of practice that are absolutely consequential and cannot be left aside. So we want to be moving from the basics to advanced application in practice that takes into consideration all of the elements that are necessary for legal ethical practice. So join us for that.

 

Liath Dalton 

Check out the show notes, we will have links to each of the compacts and their maps and news and FAQ threads. And we’ll have a link to our training, which will also be available as an on-demand CE training.

 

Liath Dalton 

And we’ll talk to you folks next week. Thanks for joining us.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah, talk to you next week, everybody.

 

Liath Dalton 

This has been Group Practice Tech. You can find us at personcenteredtech.com. For more podcast episodes, you can go to personcenteredtech.com/podcast or click podcast on the menu bar.