COLUMBUS, Ohio (Statehouse News Bureau) — A bill allowing interstate licensing of social services took effect on Friday, but it will be at least a year before Ohio allows its social workers to meet with clients who live outside the Buckeye State and vice versa.
Governor Mike DeWine signed Senator Kristina Roegner’s (R-Hudson) Senate Bill 90 in May, making Ohio a member of the Social Work Licensure Compact, which will allow social workers in participating states to obtain multi-state licenses.
So far, according to an analysis by the Ohio Legislative Service Commission, 15 other states have joined, including neighboring Kentucky and Tennessee.
This comes at a time when the need for mental health care in the state far exceeds supply, said Liam Strausbaugh, a practice associate with the National Association of Social Workers in Ohio.
“There are months-long waiting lists for people to come in and get screened, especially for people seeking specialized services,” Strausbaugh said in an interview.
Most Ohio counties, 85%, have a shortage of mental health professionals, according to state data. But even in the post-pandemic era of telehealth, most social workers and similar professionals cannot provide services to people who do not live in the same state because of licensing standards.
These standards can create challenges anywhere, but Strausbaugh says they can be acute along borders — for example, for providers and patients in the Cincinnati tri-state area.
“You could have clients in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana,” Strausbaugh said. “But the way you get licensed as a social worker is that you have to be licensed in the state where the client lives. So if you’re only licensed in Ohio, you can only see clients who live in Ohio.”
Ohio was one of the first states to join the Social Work Licensure Compact. Although the base number of seven states has joined the compact, it will take at least a year before interstate practice becomes possible, according to the state’s website.
“They haven’t even had their first meeting yet,” Strausbaugh said. “This commission is really going to create all the different rules related to interstate licensing, all the regulations on how these licenses are actually distributed.”
During this legislative session, Roegner sponsored several similar bills to make licenses transferable to other professions and fields, from medical assistants to cosmetologists to dental hygienists.
