There are currently four pairs of bills related to public access and professional practice of clinical psychology in Massachusetts. (If you are aware of others that should be listed here, please let us know!). You can click on a bill to find out its current status.
H.2528 and S.1487, allowing Massachusetts to enter the Psychology Interjurisdictional Compact. These bills were reported favorably out of the Joint Committee on Public Health on 10 October 2025 (just in the nick of time! huge thanks to everyone who helped make that happen!) and are now in fiscal review (Senate Ways and Means, House Health Care Financing). Regardless, we will need everyone's help to keep our legislators' attention focused -- stay tuned!
H.2536 and S.1488, the "nurses orders" bills -- this is just fixing a typo in the law -- right now, nurses are not allowed to follow medical orders given by a psychologist, which means that in a psychiatric treatment facility or emergency room, everything a psychologist would like to ask a nurse to do needs to first be rubber-stamped by an MD. This seems like it should have been a no-brainer, but this law has repeatedly died in committee for over a decade. These bills were also reported favorably out of the Joint Committee on Public Health on 10 October 2025. The Senate version was assigned to the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing on 14 October, and the House version was assigned to Ways and Means. No clue as to why, since this literally has zero financial effect, but at least it's moving forward.
H.462 and S.255, establishing senior psychologist licensure. When a psychologist who has held a license in some other state for over five years wishes to relocate to Massachusetts, at present, they are required to get their previous state to dig up physical copies of all of the paperwork they filed when they originally sought that license. It's a serious burden on the professionals and doesn't actually protect the public from anything -- the fact that they were licensed in the first place, the specific high and strict standards they were required to meet to get that license, the fact that they maintained that license over time and also maintained a clean disciplinary record, are all matters of public record. Many states do not keep this paperwork accessible, resulting in extraordinarily long delays and even in outright denials of licenses. This bill has also repeatedly died in committee in previous sessions, for no apparent reason. In the current session, it was originally assigned to the Joint Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure. The House version was reported favorably in early August 2025 and sent to the Joint Committee on Public Health. A hearing was held on 29 September 2025 (thanks to those who submitted oral or written testimony!). The Senate version is currently in Ways and Means.
H.1321 and S.685, insurance card transparency. Basically, insurance cards should say what kind of insurance they are, what your copays and deductibles are, etc? This bill has also repeatedly died in committee, again for no apparent reason. It was originally assigned to the Joint Committee on Financial Services, reported favorably, and then assigned to the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing on 31 July 2025. The Senate side of the committee voted 5 in favor, 1 abstaining, on 26 August 2025. The House side has until 21 January 2026 to take action.