Michigan mental-health counselors get final OK of bill that allows them to keep practicing
A bill that would allow licensed professional counselors to continue to diagnose and treat mental-health patients passed with unanimous support in the state Senate Thursday and is headed to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is expected to sign it into law.
The bill and its swift passage were the result of a concerted push by the counselors, who provide services to some 150,000 people, to stop rules proposed by the state Department of Licensing and Regulation that would have impacted the counselors’ ability to officially diagnose and treat patients.
The counselors rallied at the Capitol several times, flooded lawmakers’ offices with phone calls, e-mails and letters and testified en masse at hearings on the matter. The campaign to stop the rules worked. The legislation was fast-tracked in the Legislature and passed unanimously in both the House and Senate.
When the measure received final passage Thursday, counselors who filled the gallery above the Senate chamber stood and cheered.
Read more: https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/17/mental-health-counselors/4011114002/
(Detroit Free Press)