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 Announcing the Minnesota Psychological Association August - December 2024 Continuing Education Programs

Open Division / Committee Chairs

The following positions are open for the 2025 year. Please click HERE to see the full description for the divisions and HERE to see the full description for Committee Chairs.

  • 2025 President-Elect (3 year term; 2025-2027)
  • Multicultural Division Chair (3 year term; 2025-2027)
  • Forensic Division Chair (3 year term; 2025-2027)
  • Public Service Division Chair (3 year term; 2025-2027)
  • Student Division Co-Chair (2 year term; 2025-2026)
  • Academic Division Chair (3 year term; 2025-2027)
  • Psychoanalytical Studies Division Chair (3 year term; 2025-2027)
  • Rural Division Chair (3 year term; 2025-2027)
  • Payer Committee Chair (3 year term; 2025-2027)
  • Diversity Committee Chair (1 year term; 2025)
  • Trisha Stark Community Involvement Committee Chair (1 year term; 2025)

The following positions are also open for nominations and are appointed:

  • Treasurer (1 year term 2025)
  • Secretary (1 year term 2025)

 

Change in MN Health Plans

Many psychologists in MN are not in network with insurance plans, which reduces access to high quality psychological services for consumers. The legislature passed a law last session requiring local insurance plans to accept any willing qualified provider, from now through June 2025.

Here is information about the legal change that temporarily requires Minnesota health plans to open their networks for enrollment of all qualified providers. Several of the health plans have significantly increased their rates for doctoral providers, so if reimbursement levels have been a concern for you in the past, this could be a good time to reevaluate your interest in joining networks.

Mental health advocates have long been concerned about the higher proportion of people who choose to pay privately for their mental health services for reasons of not being able to find qualified providers who are in their insurance networks. While consumers may still choose to go out of network for a variety of reasons, one of the goals of this legal change is to improve the adequacy of networks.

Here is the relevant section of the statute.
Minnesota Statute: Section 62Q.096 - CREDENTIALING OF PROVIDERS
(b) In order to ensure timely access by patients to mental health services, between July 1, 2023, and June 30, 2025, a health plan company must credential and enter into a contract for mental health services with any provider of mental health services that:(1) meets the health plan company's credential requirements. For purposes of credentialing under this paragraph, a health plan company may waive credentialing requirements that are not directly related to quality of care in order to ensure patient access to providers from underserved communities or to providers in rural areas;(2) seeks to receive a credential from the health plan company;(3) agrees to the health plan company's contract terms. The contract shall include payment rates that are usual and customary for the services provided;(4) is accepting new patients; and (5) is not already under a contract with the health plan company under a separate tax identification number or, if already under a contract with the health plan company, has provided notice to the health plan company of termination of the existing contract.
(c)A health plan company shall not refuse to credential these providers on the grounds that their provider network has:(1) a sufficient number of providers of that type, including but not limited to the provider types identified in paragraph (a); or (2) a sufficient number of providers of mental health services in the aggregate.

MA LPs - Medicare Providers

Some MPA representatives met with APA representatives last week for a briefing on the enrollment of MA LPs as Medicare providers.  We learned that APA Services asked CMS to also recognize psychologists with masters degrees as eligible providers.

CMS ultimately issued this comment in the final rule, “In response to the comments received on the variation in nomenclature used across States for mental health counselors, we wish to make clear that individuals who meet all of the applicable statutory and regulatory qualifications for the mental health counselor benefit category for education and clinical supervised experience, but are licensed or certified by their State under a different title to furnish mental health counseling, are eligible to enroll in Medicare under the Part B ‘‘mental health counselor’’ statutory benefit category.”

However, APA staff imagine that some MA LP psychologists could experience challenges in the enrollment process as the Medicare contractors implement this change.  Please contact the MPA office [email protected] to share your success or issues with the enrollment process.  APA’s Office of Health Care Financing  ([email protected]) wants to be kept informed if MA LP’s are not successful in enrolling in Medicare as “mental health counselors.”

Here are some resources to help with the enrollment process. 
Become a Medicare Provider or Supplier | CMS
marriage-and-family-therapists-and-mental-health-counselors-faq-09052023.pdf (cms.gov)

Special thanks to Dana Fox, Ph.D., LP for her efforts on this topic!

 

 

Other updates:

Legislative Updates

VoterVoice Action Center

COVID-19 Resources

Racial Justice Resources

COVID Cares Phone Line

    

MPA Diversity Statement

The Minnesota Psychological Association actively encourages the participation of all psychologists regardless of age, creed, race, ethnic background, gender, socio-economic status, region of residence, physical or mental status, political beliefs, religious or spiritual affiliation, and sexual or affectional orientation. Although we are an organization of individuals from diverse cultures and backgrounds, the Minnesota Psychological Association also recognizes our core unifying identities as Psychologists who practice in America. We also recognize that we may hold unintentional attitudes and beliefs that influence our perceptions of and interactions with others. Within this context of unity and self-exploration, we are committed to increasing our sensitivity to all aspects of diversity as well as our knowledge and appreciation of the unique qualities of different cultures and backgrounds. We aspire to become alert to aspects of diversity, previously unseen or unacknowledged in our culture. In this spirit, we are committed to collaborating with multicultural groups to combat racism and other forms of prejudice as we seek to promote diversity in our society. To this end, we are dedicated to increasing our multicultural competencies and effectiveness as educators, researchers, administrators, policymakers, and practitioners.