Oregon Council of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
The Oregon Medical Association
The Oregon Psychiatric Association (pending)
The Oregon Pediatric Society
The Oregon Association of Orthopedists
The Oregon Academy Ophthalmology
OPPOSES SB 1046-A
SB 1046-A would allow the Oregon Medical Board and the Oregon
Board of Psychologist Examiners to create a certificate for
“Prescribing Psychologists” that would allow them to prescribe.
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We believe that this is a patient safety issue. We remain concerned that this legislation does not
allow for adequate physician supervision of new prescribing psychologists. Only two other states
allow psychologists to prescribe drugs. Both of those states allow for physician concurrence or
physician supervision of new prescribing psychologists.
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This bill only requires “collaboration” between the prescribing psychologist and the “health care
professional” who oversees the patient’s medical care. If the physician disagrees with the
prescribing psychologist, there is nothing in the legislation that allows the physician to override
that decision. This is LESS oversight than the two other states that currently allow psychologist
prescribing.
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Additionally, without clear supervision we remain concerned that the loosely defined
collaboration could lead to liability issues with the bulk of the liability falling on the physician.
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We are also concerned that “health care professional” is undefined in the legislation and that the
Committee on Prescribing Psychologists is unbalanced. The committee includes four
psychologists, but only three physicians. For equal input and consideration the committee should
include equal representatives and should also include some consumer representation.

While the original version of this bill was facilitated in an interim workgroup, the OMA was not
included in that workgroup. The OMA provided comments outlining our concerns with the
workgroup draft during the public comment period. None of our concerns were considered or
addressed in the final workgroup product.
Finally, expanding prescriptive authority should not be undertaken without adequate training or
supervision. While this issue has been before the legislature for several sessions, the specifics in this
version of the bill are new. We believe that this issue remains an important one that shouldn’t be rushed
through a 4 week supplemental session. The final amendments for this bill received NO public hearing.
Please vote NO on this version of SB 1046-A.