About Your License Renewal Requirements
Okay, I guess we better do this one more time then we'll move on. Effective Jan 1, 2024 if you are a licensee of the TX LPC, LMFT, Psych, or SW Boards then your bi-annual license renewal falls under the complete set of guidelines that were argued extensively (not by the boards!) in '22 and passed in early '23. All but the 50% rule has been in effect since early last year but as of Jan 1 2024, even that applies now to all licensees.
I am encouraging you to pay attention to what I'm about to tell you 'cause this was not just a few cosmetic changes made to the rules, then back to business as usual. This will sneak up on you and bite you hard in the back-end if you don't take the appropriate steps in advance.
About Your License Renewal Requirements
If you're an AMHP Member you can download a nice diagram of how all the new regulations work. Included in the download is a form to print out upon which you can track the ce courses you take, their applicable hours, and the board-required category into which they fit. If you're not an AMHP Member yet you can either sign up here then access those forms at the link above or you may download your rulebook here and read the new reg's for yourself (the new, simplified ce renewal requirements went from 2 pgs to about 7).
We've gone through the new rules and what they require extensively in other blog posts so we'll not do that again here. The point I want to drive home is the application of the 50% Rule now and the pending train-wreck you'll likely experience if you don't track all this stuff carefully as you go.
That Light You See is a Choo-Choo
50% of your ce hours have to now come from an "Approved Provider" (see downloaded chart). That's something you have to be able to "prove" if audited. FYI, all of the CE Certificates issued by AMHP have an emblem on them that is a visual assurance that the issuing authority, AMHP, is an Approved Provider.
When it's time to renew your license you'll need to upload all of your ce certificates as you've always done. I see two ways to run afoul with the good ladies at BHEC:
1. They can't tell from submitted ce documents if you've met the 50% Rule requirements or not, or which ce category to apply them to.
You'll get a love note, a deficiency letter from the BHEC staff.
2. You get audited.
5% of all licensees are picked at random each year for audits. If you get audited then you'll have to be able to prove that you met all the ce requirements as spelled out in the rulebook, especially that nasty 50% Rule. If you fall short of that then you'll have to take some additional classes from an Approved Provider to satisfy the requirement, probably within a specified timeframe which will not be convenient to your schedule or conducive to seeing clients.
What's a Licensee to Do?
Download the document packet recommended above. Take 15-20 minutes to review it and understand it, then actually print out the tracking form and use it.
I suggest you create an actual manilla folder for your ce certificates, for each renewal cycle, label it as such and keep the darn thing in a locked drawer somewhere. Then print out your certificate(s) as you earn them and log them in the tracking sheet as you go.
At renewal time you can simply fax the entire folder contents to BHEC, including your tracking form. The BHEC ladies will think you're a rock star.
If you should get audited you'll be able to produce the same folder and your tracking sheet. Auditors love organized people and there's never enough love to go around for auditors. Just a word to the wise.....!
Summary
The new BHEC renewal laws are now fully in effect as of about 4 weeks ago. You can think ahead and avoid any unnecessary train derailments. Or, you can be "that guy" that gets deficiency letters or audit notices from BHEC about your renewal submissions, then spends weeks scrambling, looking for lost certificates and courses you can take that qualify.
I prefer to track my stuff as I go and make the ladies at BHEC do as little hair-pulling as possible, avoiding deficiency letters. And wouldn't you just rather pull out an organized folder with a completed tracking chart in it and make that available to an auditor? I know I have better things to do with my time.
You got this!
Got Something to Say?
These posts are based on the beliefs and personal experience of the post's author. Please feel free to leave your civil, constructive comments below. We try very hard to back up our statements with fact-based data and we ask you to do the same in your comments. You do not need to be logged in to leave a comment.
About the Author
Kathleen Mills is a fire-breathing, 32+ year veteran of the counseling world. People react in one of two ways when evil touches their lives: some retreat in fear, and some advance without pause to engage it. Kathleen falls firmly in the latter group. She owns and operates Life Tree Counseling in Frisco, TX, possesses a tireless work-ethic, and eagerly awaits your arrival into her growing army of warriors.
