We entrust our legislative lobbyists, hired after careful due diligence by the IPA Executive Committee and IPA Council to help us pursue policy established by the IPA. Legislative meetings, hearings, and any other legislative action may or may not be announced publicly. The IPA leadership and the IPA lobbyists will make strategic decisions about appropriate times for public announcements. If individual IPA members disagree with IPA policy, they can take personal action as they so choose. The result of all legislative initiatives has been and will continue to be announced to the IPA membership in the various communication modalities described above.

Our legislative initiative for prescriptive authority is very similar to the legislative initiative of other healthcare providers who are pushing to expand their scopes of practice. Scope of practice is dynamic. The world is changing and nothing stands still.

The medical community does not attack our existing license. The medical community generally aims to prevent psychologists from expanding their scope of practice and has, in the past, unsuccessfully lobbied against our seeking licensure (over “registration”), unsuccessfully lobbied against our receiving insurance reimbursement, successfully lobbied against our using the word “diagnosis” instead of “classification” in our licensing act and successfully lobbied against our having hospital admitting privileges. The medical community is presently lobbying, and has lobbied in the past, against psychologists’ receiving prescriptive authority. Once we receive prescriptive authority, the medical community will come to accept our expanded scope of practice just as they have accepted the expanded scope of practice and prescriptive authority of optometrists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other health professionals who have gained authority for practices that in earlier years had been the sole province of clinicians with medical degrees.

In New Mexico and Louisiana, states in which psychologists prescribe, the reimbursement practices by insurance carriers, for non-prescribing psychologists, have not been affected by the presence of prescribing psychologists.

The passage of legislation authorizing psychologists who have specialized training in clinical psychopharmacology to prescribe medications would expand our licensing act. Thus, licensed psychologists who have 460 hours of specialized, didactic training in clinical psychopharmacology, 80 hours of physical assessment training, who have made recommendations for medication for 100 patients under close supervision from a prescribing health provider, who have passed the APA Psychopharmacology Exam for Psychologists (PEP), and have been approved by the Psychology Licensing Board in the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation will receive an additional license by the Psychology Licensing Board to prescribe medication.

We are a professional, scientific association and, as such, we support professional activities, backed by empirically valid data, in which many of our members engage or wish to engage. The RxP legislative initiative can be seen as an empirically supported professional activity in which many members wish to engage. We do not only support professional activities in which there is unanimous agreement. Certainly, it has been noted, by Dr. Mary Kay Pribyl and others, that the legislative initiative to secure insurance reimbursement for psychologists in 1976 and the legislative initiative to license psychologists in 1981 were not unanimously supported by psychologists. In fact, throughout history, many of the most important scientific and professional advances have been made by individuals with whom some have disagreed. Adhering to the IPA Mission, the IPA supports evidence based science and practice in Illinois. (This is one reason why the APA and IPA have adopted “Keesey’s Rules of Order,” a paradigm of governance that balances the rights of many different opinions in professional organizations.)

Yes, using search engines like “Google” and “Bing” to learn about the history of an issue as well as the history of those advocating an opinion about an issue has become standard in this electronic communications era. Using the APA Website to research information, such as the APA training requirements and opportunities for a degree or certification in Clinical Psychopharmacology, is highly advised. Checking the IPA Website for postings of meetings, where the RxP issue, as well as other complex professional issues, may be discussed, is highly recommended.

Since the listserv is very public, we value it as a tool for encouraging civil and scientific debate. We do not make IPA policy on the listserv. Policy is made by the IPA governing structure that includes Area Code Representatives, Section Chairs, and IPA Executive Officers. IPA members are welcome to observe IPA Executive Committee and Council meetings (with at least 24 hours’ notice to the President) and may speak on an issue if requested of the President (and granted by the President) at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting. We encourage all members to take the time to attend and participate in Section Meetings, Regional Meetings, educational and social IPA events, and, of course, our annual Convention. This follows the IPA (and APA) rules for meetings, IPA Bylaws, and Keesey’s Rules of Order, the rules of order adopted by both the IPA and the APA.

No. The IPA Executive Committee and Council have been sensitive to Council and Member wishes that the funding for the RxP Initiative come from separate funding sources rather than from the general legislative fund. This is done so that members may choose to fund or not to fund the RxP initiative. The source of funding for the RxP effort is from monies contributed solely for the purpose of the RxP legislative effort. The RxP funding is not coming from any general IPA membership revenue stream. The details of the Treasurer’s Report are available to the IPA Executive Committee and the IPA Council. Any IPA member who wishes to know details about the IPA Treasurer’s Report should talk with any member of the IPA Executive Committee or the IPA Executive Director. IPA will follow established procedures for releasing budgetary information.