Current licensure bill S.F. No. 133

 

Licensure Updates

Date: April 19, 2013 – Licensure Bill On Hold Until 2014 Session

Our licensure bill was reintroduced in the Minnesota Senate and House of Representatives on January 28, 2013.  It was assigned Senate File 0133 and House File 0203.  With the help of our lobbyist, Vic Moore, we lined up 5 authors in the Senate (the legislative limit).  All 5 are on the Senate Health Committee, the first committee in which we will eventually have a hearing.  In the House we have 12 co-authors, 10 of which are on the House Health Committee.  Both committees are lined up currently with votes in our favor, but we need to remain on top of any opposition to maintain these votes.

 

The 2013 legislative calendar required that bills have their first policy committee (for us the Health committee) hearings by March 15.  We were not granted hearings in that time frame and therefore will need to wait for the beginning of the legislative calendar in 2014.  Our lobbyist has received a commitment for us to get hearings in 2014.  The Health committee has many other issues on their agenda this session including the health insurance exchange and the nursing staffing ratios.  Our bill was NOT singled out.  There are a number of other licensure bills submitted, and none have had hearings this session.

 

We made two main changes to the bill this session.  One was to decrease the number of people on the advisory committee from 11 to 9 and the other was to add language to address dermatologist concerns regarding MOHs testing.

 

Our opposition will come primarily from the Minnesota Hospital Association, some specific hospitals/systems and from the American Association of Bioanalysts (a lab membership and certificate agency).  We are prepared to address the concerns in testimony and have already provided response to our lobbyist to use with legislators.  Issues raised include how we recognize military trained lab specialists in our bill (which is exactly the same as the VA Hospital system), the need for two levels (2 year and 4 year) clinical laboratory professionals, that the bill favors 4-year over 2-year professionals (which it does not), that licensure would raise costs of healthcare and that our bill was in conflict with CLIA.  In reality, our bill builds on top of CLIA, but does not conflict.

 

We held a legislative symposium in February and some of our members visited legislators at the Capitol.  We have appreciated the specific advocacy efforts that we have received from specific members of our laboratory societies when needed to help a legislator make a decision.  Next year, when we have committee hearings, if you live in the district of a committee member you will be hearing from us with a request to call the office of your legislator.

 

Date: March 7, 2013 - Urgent Request - Please act by March 11

The Minnesota Laboratory Licensure Coalition is off and running again for the 2013-2014 session of the state legislature. This session looks very different with both houses having a Democratic majority and many new senators and representatives in office. Committees have new chairpersons and many have new membership.

This means we have a lot of work to do to contact these individuals and urge them to support our bill – especially those who sit on the first Health committees that will hear the bill, but including all legislators. We need your help to do this!

You can find your senator or representative’s contact information by following these steps:

· Go to the Web site: http://www.leg.state.mn.us/

• At the bottom of the page, see Who Represents Me?
• Enter your address in the space given
• Click on the name of your senator and representative to find their office location, phone number, and email address.

Here is a suggested message. You can copy this into an email, revise it to make it more personal to you, and/or leave a call or voice mail with this information.

Date: November 13, 2012

Submitted by Rick Panning - MN Licensure Coalition Co-Chair

“Licensure:  A new legislative session – another chance!”    

After the 2012 legislative session, where we had success in the Minnesota Senate, but were not granted a hearing in the Minnesota House, the licensure coalition made the decision to put the licensure effort “on hold” until after the November 2012 elections.  Our thought process was that if the Republican Party retained control of the House of Representatives, our chances would not be very good, they might not actually exist.  This was because the Health Committee chair, who would not grant us a hearing, would still be the chair of the committee.  We did not want to use the laboratory organizations’ money for an effort that had little or no chance or proceeding.

Well, then came November 6.  I was at a meeting in San Antonio, and because the internet was not working in my hotel, I was watching national election returns on TV and the local returns on my Blackberry.  Well, lo and behold, when I woke up on Wednesday morning, it became apparent that the Democratic Party had taken control of both the Minnesota Senate and House.  It did not take long for our lobbyist, Vic Moore, to contact Kathy Hansen and me to set up a meeting to start planning for the session.  Both Kathy and I had to adjust our mindsets, because we had moved to a place where we assumed we would not have activity in the 2013 session.  Trust me when I say that we are NOT disappointed about this turn of events.  We believe this probably presents our best chance at passage of a licensure bill in the Minnesota legislature.  It is not a slam dunk by any means, but somehow the “stars seems to be aligned” for us.

Vic did meet with us on November 8 and laid out a strategy for starting to identify chief authors in the Senate and the House and to start identifying sponsors on both sides of the political aisle.  Kathy is quickly working to make sure our bill is updated and ready for introduction in both Houses on the opening day of the session, January 8, 2013.  The bill is basically ready, but we need to add back in a few things that we were asked to remove last year.  I will work to reconvene the licensure coalition and begin planning our advocacy efforts.

As I stated early, this is NOT a slam dunk.  Even though the political support may be there, we still have to work with opposition to the bill from key stakeholders – Minnesota Hospital Association, AAB, Mayo Clinic and some individual hospital systems.  This coming year we want to assure a personal approach to advocacy.  This is especially important when we have some many new members in the legislature.  Please stay posted as we provide updates in the coming months.

 

 

Date: April 2, 2012

Submitted by: Rick Panning Kathy Hansen, Licensure Coalition Co-chairs 

2012 Licensure Update:  Forward Progress 

Our Minnesota licensure progress for this year has ended for the 2012 Minnesota legislative session.  We were informed by Representative Gottwalt who chairs the House Health and Human Services Committee that he would not grant us a hearing.  His reasons were as follows:

·         The committee was out of hearing time. He has been consistent in refusing to hear numerous other licensing bills. For the committee it is lower priority bill.  

·         With the number of bills in his committee's possession, he has had to turn down many more requests than they have had time to hear.

This is frustrating, especially having had some committee success in the Senate and considering that we had two vocal opponents, one of them quite powerful – AAB and the Minnesota Hospital Association.  In the Senate our bill passed the Health and Human Services Committee and the Government Innovations Committee.  We also had our Minnesota Department of Health Fiscal Note prepared and submitted as were going to need to return to the Finance Committee of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.  The fiscal not is necessary to show legislators that the bill would not have a negative impact on the budget of the state.  As with all other licensure regulations, the licensure fees need to cover the cost of administering the regulation and ours did that.

 

We did make one last attempt in the Senate to pursue passage by making a request to include our bill in what is called an Omnibus bill that includes a number of different issues.  Our request was denied.

This year we were successful in working with the Minnesota Society for Pathology, the College of American Pathologists, the Minnesota Society for Cytology and the Minnesota Society for Histology as we added the cytotechnologists, histology technicians and histotechnologists to the bill.

The opposition, this year, came from two organizations, AAB (American Association of Bioanalysts) and the Minnesota Hospital Association.  Both organizations testified against our bill in our first Senate hearing. 

·         AAB’s primary opposition is on two fronts:

o   They do not support a distinction between the MLT and MLS levels of the clinical part of our profession.

o   They believe our bill is not supportive of veterans even though we recognize their military laboratory training and allow them to be licensed, with an associate’s degree.  Our requirements were supported by the state veteran’s organizations and are equivalent to the requirements of the VA Medical Center.

·         The Minnesota Hospital Association voted to “not support our bill” and testified with the following reasons.

o   Felt our bill is unnecessary as the CLIA ’88 regulations are sufficient.  We strongly view the CLIA regulations as low level, basement regulations and that we need to operate at a higher level.

o   Compared our bill to the licensure regulations in New York state and claimed that the New York legislation has exacerbated the personnel shortage.  Our bills are very different and one main difference is that it does not grandfather in current professionals, as our bill does.

o   Used a Dartmouth study that shows the relationship of quality and cost of healthcare across the United States.  This showed high quality and low cost in Minnesota while other states with laboratory licensure have high cost and low quality.  This relationship to laboratory licensure, alone, was flawed.

We will need to review and revisit things after the legislative session is over and also decide if we wait until we see the legislative landscape after the November elections, as things could change dramatically this year.  The coalition will regroup and debrief from the session and prepare options for the future in terms of reintroducing in the 2013 legislative session.

 

Thanks to everyone for their support.  I want to specifically thank Kathy Hansen, Janice Conway Klaassen and Dr. Lauren Anthony for their very effective testimony on the Senate Health and Human Services Committee and Kathy for being available for the Senate Government Innovations Committee hearing and numerous meetings with legislators.  While I was working in the background, I was unable to be present for the hearings but we were very well represented.  I also want to thank our colleagues in St. Cloud, who did their best, multiple times, to advocate with Representative Gottwalt.  It is logical for us that we should at least “get our day in court”, but we quickly are reminded that this is a political process.  We can hold our heads high.

 

 

Date: January 31, 2012

Submitted by Rick Panning, Licensure Coalition Chair

 

1.       2012 Legislative session began January 24, 2012.  This is the second year of the current 2 year biennium.

2.       Since there were no hearings in 2011, we are starting from scratch in both the House and the Senate.

3.       Authors and sponsors for the bill were obtained in both houses in 2011. 

House                                                                                   Senate

Mack (author)                                                                   Jungbauer (author)

Barrett                                                                                  Fishbach

Vogel                                                                                    Rosen

McDonald                                                                           Nienow

Lohmer                                                                                 Marty

Murphy

Peterson

Loeffler

Hisch

Huntley

Fritz

Hayden

Moran

Freiling

 

4.       Vic Moore and Kathy Hansen met with Senator Jungbauer on January 26, 2012

·         Senator Jungbauer approved changes to bill (see below)

·         Vic told Sen. Jungbauer that our only opposition should be AAB.  He wanted to know what the issue was and then he wanted them to come into his office so that he could try to mediate and get them to drop their opposition. 

·         Sen. Jungbauer’s staff person submitted the formal request for a hearing in the Senate.  They think the deadline for hearings will be as soon as Feb. 17

·         We may only get 15 minutes to present.

·         Vic does not want to approach Rep. Gottwalt about a House hearing until we have a Senate one and get an affirmative vote. 

·         Vic told me afterward that he feels pretty good about our chances in the Senate.  All DFL committee members will be for, and he has 3 Rep authors, which if they stay with us would be enough. 

·         He thinks the House may be a problem again. 

 

5.       Changes to current bill:

·         Link to H.F. No. 1715 bill

·         Slight wording and date changes

 

·         Worked with Minnesota Society for Cytology, Minnesota Society for Histology, Minnesota Society for Pathology and CAP to agree on wording to add cytology and histology to the bill.  Senate revisors office has incorporated the changes and the amended bill is ready to be introduced at the first hearing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6.       First committees in both houses, the health committees are the most important (see committee memberships below).  Will need advocacy support from St. Cloud members to contact Rep. Gottwalt, chair of House health committee.

 

7.       Committee testimony:  With a shorter timeframe may only be able to have 3 people testify.  Proposing Kathy Hansen, Dr. Lauren Anthony (MSP) and Rick Panning

 

8.       As committee hearings are scheduled will send advocacy requests to members who live in committee member’s districts (have membership lists for ASCLS, ASCP, CLMA, AMT, AGT and MnABB.  Will sort and send to valid emails by zip code.

 

Senate Health and Human Services Committee
Republicans			District	Home address	home Zip	also in the district
Hann	David	chair	42	Eden Prairie	55347
Benson	Michelle		49	Ham Lake	n/a	Anoka, Coon Rapids
Fischbach	Michelle		14	Paynesville	56362	Sartell, St. Joseph, Sauk Rapids
Hall	Dan		40	Burnsville	55337	Bloomington
Hoffman	Gretchen	(RN)	10	Vergas	56587	Fergus Falls, Wadena, Perham
Newman	Scott		18	Hutchinson	55350	Glencoe, Cokato, Dassell
Nienow	Sean		17	Cambridge	55008	North Branch, Chisago City, Lindstrom
Rosen	Julie	vice chair	24	Fairmont	56031	Blue Earth
Democrats
Berglin	Linda		61	Mpls	55419
Higgins	Linda		58	Mpls	55411
Lourey	Tony		8	Kerrick	55756	Hinckley, Pine City, Mora
Marty	John		54	Roseville	55113	Vadnais Hts, Shoreview
Sheran	Kathy	(RN)	23	Mankato	56001	St. Peter
House Health and Human Services Reform Committee
Republicans			District	Home address
Gottwalt	Steve	chair	15A	St. Cloud	56303	56387	56304	56368
Mack	Tara	vice chair	37A	Apple Valley	55124	55306
Abeler	Jim		48B	Anoka	55303	Ramsey
Barrett	Bob		17B	Shafer	55074	Wyoming, Lindstrom, Rush City
Benson	Mike		30B	Rochester	55902	55904	55932	55934	55929
Franson	Mary		11B	Alexandria	56308	56348	56444	55446	55336
Gruenhagen	Glenn		25A	Glencoe	55336	56044	56017	etc
Kiffmeyer	Mary	(RN)	16B	Big Lake	55309	Zimmerman
Lohmer	Kathy		56A	Lake Elmo	55042	Lakeland, Bayport
McDonald	Joe		19B	Delano	55328	55363	55376	55388
Mcelfatrick	Carolyn	(RN)	3B	Deer River	56636	55785	55748	55700	55744
					55721	56431	56350
Quam	Duane		29A	Byron	55920	55985	55963	55960	55940
Democrats
Liebling	Tina	minority lead	30A	Rochester	55903	55901	55902	55906
Fritz	Patti	(RN)	26B	Faribault	55021	55049	55052
Hosch	Larry		14B	St. Joseph	56374
Huntley	Thomas		7A	Duluth	55803	55805	55812
Loeffler	Diane		59A	Mpls	55418	55413
Moran	Rena		65A	St. Paul	55104	55103	55117
Murphy	Erin	(RN)	64A	St. Paul	55105	55104
Norton	Kim		29B	Rochester	55901
Peterson	Sandra		45A	New Hope	55427	55428	55442

 

Date: November 9, 2011

By Rick Panning, Licensure Coalition Co-chair

 

This period of time before the 2012 Legislative session kicks off on January 24 can be regarded as “setting the table”.  The work is primarily behind the scenes and relates to making sure that the bill’s authors and sponsors are still engaged and it means connecting with committee chairs to make sure that things are in order for planned committee hearings.

 

Right now the work has been concentrating on reconnecting with our stakeholder organizations – i.e. the Minnesota Hospital Association, the Minnesota Society for Pathology, CAP, Mayo Clinic and others.  One of our biggest challenges is working to minimize any opposition from individual hospital or healthcare organizations. 

 

Kathy Hansen and our lobbyist, Vic Moore met with Senator David Hahn who is the chair of the Senate Health Committee (our first step in the Senate).  Although he is traditionally opposed to licensure he was a good listener and is willing to provide a hearing, but cautioned us to find a way to show the value of licensure and why it is needed.

 

Earlier this fall our colleagues in St. Cloud, Cindy Johnson and Jeremy Angell, hosted Rep. Gottwalt who is the chair of the House Health committee.  He is also willing to provide us with a hearing, but again, the common theme is that we have to be able to communicate the value of licensure and the reasons to support the bill.  CentraCare lab did an outstanding job of communicating the importance of the laboratory and what our professionals do.

 

We are now concentrating on two things:

• Connecting with key hospital leaders
• Developing a database of members for the coalition organizations so that we can target advocacy requests by zip code and legislative district as we move through the various committees next year.

 

Our biggest challenge is developing the message that really sells the case for licensure.  We take it for granted, but we need a message that resonates with the public and the legis

 

 

Date: March 2011

The effort to license laboratory personnel in Minnesota is underway for the 2011-2012 biennium in the Minnesota Legislature. The MN legislature operates in two‐year biennial sessions. January 2011 began the next two‐year session, which means that we must reintroduce the licensure bill and start the committee process all over again, including going back to the three Senate committees that previously approved the bill in 2009.

In the November 2010 election, the Republicans gained majority control of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Our lobbyist, Vic Moore, has been working hard to identify Republicans, preferably individuals who serve on the health committees in each house, to act as chief authors of the bill. Our previous chief authors were Democrats; they can co-sponsor the bill this year but no longer be chief authors.

The  Senate authors are:
Michael Jungbauer (R) District 48, Anoka, East Bethel, Ramsey, Elk River
Michelle Fischbach, (R) District 14, Paynesville
Julie Rosen (R), District 24, Fairmont area
Sean Nienow, (R) District 17, Cambridge,Wyoming, North Branch
John Marty, (D), District 54, Roseville

The last four listed are all members of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.

Potential House co-authors are (we do not have a chief author as of 3/14/11):

Bob Barrett (R), 17B, Shafer
Bruce Vogel (R), 13B, Willmar
Joe McDonald (R), 19B, Delano
Diane Loeffler (D), 59A, Minneapolis
Sandra Peterson (D), 45A, New Hope
Thomas Huntley (D), 7A, Duluth
Larry Hosch (D),  14B, St. Joseph
Patty Fritz (D), Fairibault.
Erin Murphy (D), 64A, St. Paul

All listed are members of the House Health and Human Services  Reform Committee except Rep. Vogel.

If you live in the districts represented by any of the sponsors listed above, please email them to thank them for their support. If not, please contract your legislator to voice your support. Grass roots support is extremely important, and it only takes one opponent to sway a legislator unless they also hear from those who support the bill. (See information at the end of this article on how to do this.)

Prior to the start of the session in January, we made a few small revisions to the bill language, which was submitted to the revisor’s office to be put in the appropriate format and assigned a bill number.  The bill is ready for introduction as soon as we have authors and sponsors identified.

Because of the state’s budget situation this year, the legislature is addressing the budget first and not working on policy bills until the budget is resolved. We are unlikely to have hearings on our bill until mid-late April.

Rick Panning, Kathy Hansen, and Vic Moore have met with key stakeholders at the Minnesota Department of Health and the Minnesota Hospital Association. We have also been in contact with policy makers at the hospital systems that have opposed the bill in the past:  Fairview, Health East, and Mayo. We believe that Mayo and Fairview will remain neutral in this session. We also plan to strategize with the Minnesota Society for Pathology, where some leaders want to support the bill more actively.

 You can find your senator or representative’s contact information by following these steps:

• Go to the Web site www.leg.state.mn.us
• At the bottom of the page, see Who Represents Me?
• Enter your address in the space given
• Click on the Web page beneath the picture of your state legislator.  The Web pages vary, but they always have the location, phone number, and email address.

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Date: October 2010

With only about ten days to go before Election Day as this is written, the licensure coalition is busy preparing for the 2011 legislative session and re-introduction of the laboratory licensure bill. Read the rest of our current update here.

Date: July 2010

As the Minnesota Laboratory Licensure Coalition prepares for the 2011 legislative session, we wanted to set the stage for what to expect. Please check out our latest update here.

Date: February 25, 2010

Thursday, Feb. 25, the bill to license laboratory professionals had its hearing with the MN House Licensure Division.  

Testifying for the Licensure Coalition were Rick Panning, Kathy Hansen, Deb Rodahl and Dr. John McClure, pathologist from Methodist Hospital. 

The only official opponent scheduled was a person from a reproductive lab in Woodbury representing AAB (American Association of Bioanalysts).  They don't support the need for a Bachelor degree level MLS and said we were not flexible in this regard.  The AAB testimony contained blatant untruths about the bill and misleading and incorrect data. During their testimony, they shared that Fairview Health Services and HealthEast were also opposed to this bill

Going into the hearing, we were quite sure we did not have enough votes to advance the bill to the full House Health Committee.  We still wanted to have the opportunity to present our testimony and get a better sense of why committee members opposed licensure for laboratory professionals.  Because we were going to lose the vote 4-3,our author, Rep. Erin Murphy, "laid the bill on the table" and did not have a vote in the committee.

We are done for this session and will need to regroup for 2011 when we plan to reintroduce this bill.

Thank you for your support!

Rick Panning and Kathy Hansen, co-chairs Licensure Coalition

Date: February 24, 2010

Our licensure bill hearing before the Licensure Division committee in the House of Representatives is Thursday evening, February 25 at 6:30 in Room 200 of the State Office Building. Please find a map through this link of the Capitol Complex. The State Office Building (appropriate SOB for short) is located to the southwest or left of the capital building on the map (it is called "State Offices"). Parking is probably best on the street, like John Ireland Boulevard, because the meters are not enforced after 5:00 pm. Just a warning, Lot F requires loads of quarters - one quarter for 12 minutes. That makes sense during the day when I have been there 1 or 2 hours, but not for this when we have no idea how long we will be there.
 
I have heard from a number of you that will be in attendance for support. We do appreciate that. I want to give you a realistic picture. This committee (our door to the rest of the process) is a tough one.  It has 8 members and there is a good chance the vote could be 3-5 or 4-4 in which case we "lose". Kathy and I believe (and our lobbyist supports us) that it would not be good just to give up and not have a hearing. We believe we need to present our case and then hear the questions and concerns from the committee so that we can address them. Either way, we would be done for this session and need to start over in 2011. Our coalition would need to have a long discussion and a discussion with the organizational members like ASCP, ASCLS-MN, AMT, MnABB, CLMA, etc.about what we do next year.
 
There are 6 topics on the committee hearing agenda. We are last. It could be a long evening before they get to us. The last two items - massage therapists and clinical lab are the most controversial.

Rick Panning

Date: February 19, 2010

We now know that the hearing will be at 6:30 pm on Thursday evening, Feb 25 in the State Office Building, Room 200.  The agenda for the hearing is posted with 6 other bills to be considered.  Ours will be added on Monday.  I assume we get added at the end.

Please, if you live in one of the areas noted below, reach out to your representative on behalf of our profession:

We are asking our members who live or work in the district of any of the following, to please give a call to ask for their support and to tell them why this is important for quality and patient safety.  Calling any of the committee members is important, but especially so with Representatives Norton (Rochester), Ruud (Western suburbs) and Dean (Mahtomedi, Marine on St. Croix, Stillwater)

Committee Chair

Cy Thao
359 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St Paul, MN 55155
651-296-5158
E-mail: rep.cy.thao@house.mn

Vice Chair

Julie Bunn
521 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St Paul, MN 55155
651-296-4244
E-mail: rep.julie.bunn@house.mn

Lead-GOP

Matt Dean
287 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St Paul, MN 55155
651-296-3018
E-mail: rep.matt.dean@house.mn

Jim Abeler
203 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St Paul, MN 55155
651-296-1729
E-mail: rep.jim.abeler@house.mn

Tom Emmer
301 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St Paul, MN 55155
651-296-4336
E-mail: rep.tom.emmer@house.mn

Erin Murphy
413 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St Paul, MN 55155
651-296-8799
E-mail: rep.erin.murphy@house.mn

Kim Norton
387 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St Paul, MN 55155
651-296-9249
E-mail: rep.kim.norton@house.mn

Maria Ruud
515 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St Paul, MN 55155
651-296-3964
E-mail: rep.maria.ruud@house.mn

Date: February 17, 2010

First hearing before the House Licensure Division is tentatively set for Thursday evening February 25th...more details to come.

Date: February 6, 2010

The Minnesota Laboratory Licensure bill (HF1249/S999) will continue its journey in the 2010 session of the Minnesota legislature beginning in February.

In the winter and spring of 2009, the bill passed three committees in the Senate (Health, State & Local Government, and Ways and Means). It is now in the Finance committee where it will wait until the House takes action.  All in all, it was a good year for laboratory licensure.

During the summer activity was focused on two primary areas:

• In order for the process to continue in the Senate, the Minnesota Department of Health needs to complete what is called a fiscal note, so that the finance committee can understand the financial impact for the state of Minnesota. That preliminary work is being done. We are taking the step to come up with a firmer number for the number of laboratory professionals in the state.  We believe the number the Department of Health used was underestimated.
• We proactively decided to complete the process to have our bill reviewed by the Council of Health Boards (CHB), which represents all of the license health professions in Minnesota. This group was established to, at the request of the legislature, evaluate proposed licensure legislation. We believed that this request might occur in this session and if it did, it could delay our progress by a year. We went through the process starting in the summer and completed it in early December. The questionnaire and final CHB report are posted here.

Another activity that we engaged in was working with the Minnesota Society for Pathology to respond to another set of CAP requested changes to our bill. Most of the changes were minor and were made easily.  A couple of changes we decide not to make because we thought it went against the intent of the bill. The major one was that CAP wanted to open up the option of on-the-job training, for non-MLS Bachelor degree individuals, to all sections of the laboratory as opposed to the wording we had developed with Mayo Clinic. That language limited on-the-job training and medical directory documentation of competency to very esoteric laboratories for which no certification exam exists.

We continue to work with the one openly opposed group to our legislation – American Association of Bioanalysts (AAB).  Here again we were able to meet two of their three requests for change in the bill.  We added AAB’s certification exam to our bill as long as the individuals had a Bachelor’s or Associate’s degree.  We put in special language to recognize military trained individuals, again with the appropriate Bachelor’s or Associate’s degree. The request that we would not agree to was to drop the requirement for a Bachelor’s degree for the MLS/CLS/MT level.
Rick Panning, Licensure Coalition Co-chair
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Date: February 4, 2010

Last spring, we reported that we were successful in getting the licensure bill (HF1249/S999) for Minnesota laboratory personnel through three Senate committees. We were unable to get hearings of the bill in the House, and had to end our effort for 2009. Now we are gearing up for hearings on the bill in the House when the 2010 session starts in early February. Throughout the summer and fall, activity has continued in several areas:

The major effort has been work with the Council of Health Boards (CHB). The CHB was established by the state legislature to review proposals for licensing health professions, and it consists of representation from each of the existing licensing boards for other health professions. Although review by the CHB is at the option of the chair of the Health Committee in either the House or the Senate, we anticipated that the House may decide to require the review. Because the review takes six months, we wanted to have it done before the “short” legislative session begins in February.

We submitted a very thorough questionnaire (60 questions) about our bill and the background information to the CHB. The CHB appointed a subcommittee of three professions (Nursing, Dentistry, and Psychology) to review the laboratory bill. Rick Panning, Kathy Hansen, and our lobbyist Vic Moore met four times with the subcommittee to review the questionnaire and the bill in detail. The subcommittee made a few suggestions to clarify wording, which have been incorporated into the version of the bill that will be considered in 2010. On December 1, the full Council of Health Boards, representing about 20 professions, approved the CHB report of the subcommittee. (At the same meeting, the CHB also considered licensure reports for massage therapists and for “body art” practitioners.)

Although the CHB does not recommend to the legislature whether to pass the bill or not, their report is very positive about the content of our bill and the reasons for requesting licensure for laboratorians.

We have continued discussion with stakeholders who have opposed the bill in the past. 

• The Minnesota Society for Pathology (MSP) has been instrumental in helping with our responses to wording changes requested by the College of American Pathologists (CAP). 
• We have continued discussions with the American Association of Bioanalysts (AAB) and have come to agreement on some issues. We expect that they will continue to oppose the bill, as they do not agree that there is need for a BS degree level laboratorian, a component of the bill that we are not willing to change.
• We have continued discussions with health systems and individual hospitals, some of whom are still concerned that additional costs to them would be created by licensing laboratorians. (Data from ASCP surveys shows that salaries in states with and without licensure are essentially identical. Practitioners will pay a licensure fee.)

We will need to ramp up our advocacy efforts in January, especially to those members of the House who serve on the Licensure Subdivision and the full Health Committee. We will be contacting members of the Licensure Coalition organizations who live in the House districts of those committee members, and asking you to contact your representative.

This journey has been a marathon, not a sprint, but we continue to work toward success in passing this bill with your help!  Note: Please reference associated documents linked in the text above and also found in the right hand column under "In This Section" for your review.

Submitted by Rick Panning and Kathy Hansen, Licensure Coalition Chairs
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Date: April 2009

Licensure journey ended for this legislative session

The Minnesota Laboratory Licensure Coalition made much progress during the 2009 legislative session. We worked with a variety of stakeholders to modify the bill and saw forward progress in the legislative process. On April 1, the coalition was informed by co-chairs Rick Panning and Kathy Hansen and lobbyist Vic Moore that the process would end for this year, the first in a 2-year legislative session. Although it is disappointing to have to make a decision to not continue, it is important to understand the progress that was made and to plan the next steps as we prepare for 2010.

Date: March 22, 2009
Our next challenge will be when we have our first hearing in the House Licensure subcommittee. Listed below are the members with their email addresses and their office phone numbers. Right now we are likely to be at 3 votes for, 3 votes against and 2 undecided.  We need to win the vote in this committee. It would need to be at least 5-3 and not 4-4.

We need to have members of our various organizations contact any of the Representatives below to voice our support for the bill. Please contact Kathy Hansen or Rick Panning with any questions or contacts that have been made.

Currently:

Votes for:  Erin Murphy, Cy Thao, Jim Abeler (although we need to specifically advocate with Rep. Abeler and the other two should also be contacted))
Votes against:  Julie Bunn, Kim Norton and Matt Dean (although we should still make advocacy calls or emails to their offices to voice our support and try to change their mind.
Undecided: Two that we really need to contact because they are undecided and can be swayed:  Tom Emmer and Maria Ruud.
We do not have a date for the hearing in the House, but it could be late next week. We need people who live in these districts to make contacts ASAP.

1.    Erin Murphy, District 64A (House author):  rep.erin.murphy@house.mn, (651-296-5992) Erin's district is Kathy Hansen's district.  It is in St. Paul and is North of 35E, South of 94, East of the River and West of Chatsworth.  Summit Avenue runs right down the middle
2.    Cy Thao, District 65A (chair of this subcommittee).  rep.cy.thao@house.mn (651-296-5526)   He is also in St. Paul (East of Lexington Ave., North of I-94, West of 35E.  University Avenue area).
3.    Jim Abeler, District 48B  rep.jim.abeler@house.mn (651-296-8893)  He is from the Anoka and Ramsey area of Anoka County
4.    Maria Ruud, District 42A  rep.maria.ruud@house.mn (651-296-9873)  Minnetonka and Eden Prairie.  Western Hennepin County, Eastern Carver County.  I-494 runs down the middle.|
5.    Kim Norton, District 29B rep.kim.norton@house.mn (651-296-2585)  Rochester/Mayo Clinic
6.    Julie Bunn, District 56A rep.julie.bunn@house.mn (651-296-3921)  Washington County, Lake Elmo, Oak Park Heights. Lakeland.  Woodwinds and Stillwater Hospitals are in her district.
7.    Matt Dean, District 52B rep.matt.dean@house.mn (651-296-3541)  Stillwater, Marine on St. Croix, Dellwood, Washington County.
8.    Tom Emmer, District 19B rep.tom.emmer@house.mn (651-297-8407) Albertville, St. Michael, Rockford, Delano, Waverly, Montrose

The current bill numbers for the Senate and House are Senate File 999 and House File 1249. Emails and telephone calls are most effective.
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Date: March 20, 2009

Yesterday the lab licensure bill passed the Senate Judiciary committee without a "no" vote. Kathy Hansen testified for us.

Now the tough ones will begin - the House Licensure subcommittee and the Senate Finance committee. As we know dates we will be asking for advocacy contacts. Our known opposition is AAB and the American Legion (we will actually be adding language recognizing military training as we start the House process.)
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Date: March 11, 2009

The licensure bill just passed the Senate Government operations committee on a vote of 11-0. Our next step will be the Senate Judiciary committee, probably next week. It will focus on the disciplinary aspects of the bill.

The timeline to start in the House is yet unknown. Rick Panning will be sending out an email asking for advocacy with the House licensure subcommittee. That committee is key and the vote could be close.
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To receive licensure updates via email, please contact one of the Licensure Coalition Co-chairs:
Rick Panning, MBA, CLS(NCA)  rick.panning@allina.com
Kathy Hansen, CLS(NCA)  khansen3@fairview.org