Governor’s Bill to Cut Red Tape for Behavioral Health Workers Moves Forward to Senate

Salem, OR - First Lady Aimee Kotek Wilson, chair of the Governor's Behavioral Health Talent Council (council), joined members of the Council and community providers to testify today before the Senate Committee on Early Childhood and Behavioral Health in support of Governor Tina Kotek's House Bill 4083, legislation designed to cut red tape for behavioral health workers - after the bill passed the State House with bipartisan support.

House Bill 4083 represents the first set of actions being recommended by the Behavioral Health Talent Council. The bill addresses Oregon's behavioral health workforce crisis by streamlining credentialing through a single, centralized process which will help to alleviate long wait times for providers ready to provide care, reducing unnecessary administrative work that contributes to burnout, and expanding access to clinical supervision by allowing qualified professionals to supervise across license types. Together, these changes are designed to retain workers in the field, ensure new talent can enter more seamlessly, and help ensure Oregonians can get the care they need when they need it. Learn more about the provisions in the bill here.

The First Lady, who earned her Master of Social Work in 2017, has professional experience in the field working with high acuity clients. She has recent, direct experience in navigating the education-to-credentialing-to-work continuum for behavioral health professionals.

"These recommendations represent eight months of intensive work with frontline providers, educators, and experts across the state," First Lady Kotek Wilson said. "Providers told us they're stretched beyond capacity and they're held back by unnecessary red tape. House Bill 4083 addresses what they need now: streamlined credentialing so qualified workers can start serving patients sooner, reduced administrative burden, and expanded access to supervision."

"Oregon's behavioral health professionals are stretched beyond their limits, exacerbating wait times for Oregonians waiting for care," Governor Kotek said. "The Behavioral Health Talent Council brought together the expertise we needed to develop these strategies based on what workers and communities actually experience."

"Across Oregon, there are countless qualified clinical supervisors ready to provide relevant, contextual supervision to associates," Lisa Hinson, Clinical Director at Telecare Recovery Center at Woodburn said. "But because license types don't match, we're seeing cascading negative effects. Associates remain stuck in lower-pay positions, providers are forced to seek costly external supervision, and most concerning - client care and clinical development suffer unnecessarily."

"HB 4083 is an important first step in streamlining the path into behavioral health jobs and careers," Janie Gullickson, Executive Director of the Peer Company, said. "By choosing a centralized credential system, this bill will eliminate unnecessary obstacles for people who are ready and able to begin their work."

Oregon faces a behavioral health workforce crisis. The Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC) surveyed fourteen behavioral health profession types and found that nine have alarmingly high turnover risk, with more than two-thirds of workers intending to quit. When professionals leave, Oregonians in crisis go without care.

Governor Kotek has made addressing Oregon's behavioral health workforce crisis a top priority. She commissioned HECC to conduct theBehavioral Health Talent Assessment, consolidating years of important yet fragmented, siloed research into one comprehensive resource with over 60 recommendations. Last May, she then established the Behavioral Health Talent Council to transform those recommendations into actionable plans for implementation. Working with frontline providers, licensing authorities, educational leaders, agency staff, and experts across the state, the Council developed a comprehensive set of recommendations for improving training and education pathways into the workforce, streamlining licensing and credentialing, and strengthening recruitment and retention for providers. House Bill 4083 represents the first recommendations to come out of the Council's work.

"Improving our behavioral health system is a sizable challenge," First Lady Kotek Wilson said in her testimony. "House Bill 4083, Cutting Red Tape for Behavioral Health Workers, is an important start, and the first of what we hope will be many actions from the Council's recommendations to help support and expand Oregon's behavioral health workforce."

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