I am an original member of Division 42 and my service began shortly after in various roles, as finance committee chair and long standing committee member, chair of several ad hoc committees, as the P&C Committee chair, and most recently as Council representative to complete the term vacated by Arthur Kovacs last year. That term runs to the end of 2004.
I have been a council rep from Colorado back in the mid 70’s, attended many Council meetings as both at annual association meetings and at the adjourned or midwinter meetings as a part various APA governance activities requiring presence there or as a fund raiser for the Association of Practicing Psychologists, an organization dating back to the mid 70’s. I have also served in other APA governance positions, including on original CHAMPUS/APA review committee, SOPSR (a committee to review the peer review process on behalf of the B/D of APA), BPA, the finance Committee of APA and the adhoc committee of CAPP to establish a functionality based classification system—the ICIDH-II.
I believe the most critical issues confronting independent practitioners today are:
Obtaining state by state prescription privilege privileges.
Insuring the mobility of state to state licensing that has largely been completed.
Strengthening of the advocacy capability of practitioners through the fund-raising for the APAPO, our C-6 organization.
Establishing parity for mental health care importance in reimbursement packages.
Establishing a meaningful classification system that permits reimbursements for a broader classification of mental health issues subsumed under the term disfunctionality.
Working toward a more “due-process” system of review of practice in the state boards.
Dealing the pressure to manualize treatment by taking discretionary steps in treatment out of the hands of the practitioner and by requiring evidence-based treatments only to be reimbursed.
Implementation of the solutions for these issues includes:
Active work from the division to guide and assist each state in obtaining its own legislative solution with funding help, strategy assistance, and direct lobbying.
Helping the 3 agencies, the National Register, the Association of State Psychology Boards, and ABPP to complete their recognition by all states for easing the mobility of psychologists to change residence and continue to practice psychology.
Work directly to help attract funds to the APAPO and develop a C6 arm of Div 42 that will enable it to generate funds for the advocacy process.
Through national advocacy support and availability of experts to testify and provide information to Congress that makes clear in an on-going way the need for parity.
Support the efforts to educate practitioners on the new system and its implementation when released.
Supporting legal efforts to collaborate with state officials in changing the administrative law procedures now in use will require considerable lobbying effort.
Resist the move to imply that only manualized treatment of certain emotional conditions and states is appropriate. This means dialogue within the profession about the most effective treatments.
