Let's Speed Up Licensure in Tennessee

Tennessee lags behind other states when it comes to average processing speeds for speech therapy licensing, with delays as long as four months reported to the Tennessee Association of Audiologists and Speech-Language Pathologists (TAASLP).

That sounds like inside baseball for therapists, but it has dramatic impacts for children in need of services and businesses across the state. Statewide personnel shortages are made worse when therapists aren't able to provide services because of delayed licensing times.

House Bill 496 and Senate Bill 458 in the Tennessee General Assembly would direct health-related boards to send out rules to speed up the application process for many different licenses by requiring a decision within 60 days from the date of the received application. It also authorizes those boards to request that Departments replace or transfer staff as needed to handle workflow. All of these changes would ensure that processing times in Tennessee are consistent with those of other health licensing boards nationwide and promote a growing speech-language pathology workforce in the state.

If you support faster processing times for therapists and their patients in Tennessee, please consider calling or emailing your legislator today to urge them to pass HB 496 and SB 458. You can locate your legislator here:  http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/Apps/fmlv3/districts.aspx