Western Region Monthly Meeting Meeting Minutes prepared by Jo-Ann Marks January 9, 2014 I. Call to order Heather Tustinson called to order the regular teleconference meeting of the Western Region Division Monthly Meeting at 7:05 PM II. Roll call The following persons were present: Alaska Arizona Jo-Ann Marks, Treasurer Tad Gary, President California Sharon Bowles Colorado Hawaii Rosie Woodruff, WRD Chair-Elect (worked on 20/20 project) [email protected] Idaho Heather Tustinson, President and Chair of WRD, Diana Pals, Past WRD chair, Sue Holmes, Susan P, Kendall Tucker, President-Elect, Sean Nixon, Conference Chair Montana inactive Nevada New Mexico Randall Berner Oregon Larry Connor, President Elect, Treasurer, Public Policy Chair lsc1066@gmail Philippines Utah Stephen Gitonga President Washington Theresa Kincaid, Rachel Past President &ACA Governing council Wyoming Janet DeVries, President-Elect III. Approval of minutes from last meeting: Not done IV. Branch Annual Conference Report a) Idaho - Sean Nixon Chair. IDA will hold their conference on Jan 29 to Feb 1, 2014. 251 attendees with 100 preconference have already signed up. Keynotes: Cirecie West Olatunji, PhD our current ACA president and Dr. Marlene Mayhew. b) California - Sharon CCA conference will be held August 8-15, 2014, and is a Cruise to Alaska from Seattle. Cabin prices from $1100-1395 (less cost if share a cabin). Conference fees $50 for members and grad students free. ALL are invited. Email Sharon Bowles for details c) Randal Berner - New Mexico - Annual Conference 2/28 to March 1. Title: Counselor Call to Action: Children in Crisis. They are offering 12 CEUs including those for Supervisor training requirement, Ethics and Diana Pals will be doing a DSM 5 training. Cost for conference: $250. They are ahead of last years registration numbers. d) V. New Business 1. Branch reports are due to Heather by 1/31/14. Heather, Holly and Cirecie West Olatunji, PhD our current ACA president will meet to make a consent agenda for HI. They will provide us with copies for other branches reports so we can read them before hand and generate and questions we have to discuss in HI. Heather has sent out a sample of a branch report to all western region members. Key accomplishments since July 2013 and a plan for the future. 2. Annual ACA conference in HI. Be prepare to do Show and Tell and let others know what you have accomplished. She needs people to sign up to man the WRD Booth at the conference. The booth will provide info about upcoming conferences and used to recruit members for different positions. Please let her know if you can do this or have someone who can. Heather needs professional head shots (8x10) of all current Branch Presidents by March. 3. 20/20 Endorsement. Heather has received a number of endorsements about the license portability position from the Branches. The branches are only being asked to endorse the title LPC and the definition of counseling. Rosie from HI was on that committee for 5 years and provided insight. Rachel says WRD has endorse this before. 4. Message to the Philippines: Diana Pals is collecting inspiration messages to send to our branch there. The branch president and some his family were killed in the disaster. 5. Reno Scholarship reimbursement. Rosie is waiting on the last members of that meeting to send in requests and will be sending out the reimbursement checks shortly. e) VI. Tonights Topic Political Action / Government Relations f) Wyoming: Janet reports that LPCs are not allowed to bill for Medicaid and require an MD to sign off. A bill has been drafted that will address this. 1. New Mexico: Randall reports that the President elect-elect position is being filled with a LPC from Eastern University and who will also take on the government relation position as well. 2. Idaho: Kendall reports that ICA has been providing training workshops to the community to educate about important legislative issues. They will be doing meet and greets with legislators now that it is back in session. She is working on language re: Distance counseling which includes any kind of tele-mental health and the ethical and confidential concerns. 3. New Mexico: Randall reports that an organization call the SWBHIPA (Southwestern Behavioral Health Independent Practitioners Association) which charges $35 per month dues has a lobbyist/advocate from the large medical groups sector that has been successful in increasing reimbursement to LPCs from large hospitals. 4. Arizona: Tad reported that AZCA has been successful in conjunction with other professional counselors groups in passing legislation to restructure the AZ Board of Behavioral Health and stopping a bill that would have discriminated against transgendered people. AZCA has been influential in recommending new members for appointment to the board and getting Governor Approval. He was surprised that a persons political affiliation was a major consideration in appointments. 5. Oregon: Larry reports that 2 statutes have been introduce twice regarding applying inclusive language for internships. One involved adding interns to be allowed to see self-referred 14 year old clients in independent mental health clinics to increase opportunities for interns. 1. Larry discussed the idea of opening up insurance panels to other providers. All panels are currently closed in Oregon. Out of network reimburse is small compared with in network and may have large deductibles for clients and may be complicated by the new ACA. OCA has created a 501 C 6 trade association with MFTs for lobbying and political purposes 2. Jo-Ann brought up that this may be an anti-trust issue when all insurers agree to exclude a certain class of mental health providers. Rachel Kristianson wants members to send her legislative issues that she can present to the ACA governing council. She reports that this idea of ending insurance panels/excluding a class of professionals has been passed by one house of the US legislature in the past. Please bring this issue to your branches to let CA GC what we want them to focus on. Email Rachel at rkristianson@gmail. 3. Medicare reimbursement for all counselors is another issue. 6. Rachel: Clarified that the difference between a lobbyist and a legislative advocate is the tax-benefit to the ACA to have them on the payroll. 7. Heather encouraged to use the WRD list serve to communicate. All branch Presidents, Past president and President-elects are listed there. 8. Nominations for Chair -Elect for WRD should be sent to dianapals@hotmail g) h) V. Adjournment Heather Tustinson adjourned the meeting at 8:09 P Minutes submitted by: Minutes approved by:
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 05:37:03 +0000
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