TICUA Policy Update: Telemedicine Bill, TN Promise Bill and More!
Thursday, February 25, 2021
| | | | | | | | | | | | | 112th General Assembly
Policy Update | | | | |
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| | | | | | | | | | | | Senator Shane Reeves and Rep. Clark Boyd are sponsoring legislation ( SB1265/HB508) which will codify Governor Bill Lee's Executive Order which allows pre-licensed graduate students (i.e., counseling, speech pathology, etc.) to be engaged in remote (telemedicine) patient contact under the supervision of a licensed professional. These students are required to have a set number of patient contact hours to qualify for licensure and satisfy graduation requirements. When the telemedicine bill was passed last summer, the language restricted remote medicine to "licensed" professionals only. Consequently, pre-licensed graduate students were inadvertently left out the enabling language of the bill. Prior to COVID-19 students were able to satisfy their patient contact hours through face-to-face and remote supervised sessions. If this bill passes, it will reinstate students' ability to satisfy contact hours through supervised remote sessions. As well, with the burgeoning practice of telemedicine, it is critical that the training of our graduate students include this important practice. The House version of the bill successfully passed out of the House Health Subcommittee this past Tuesday and will now move to full committee. The Senate version will be heard in the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee next week. | | | | |
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | There are two bills TICUA is monitoring related to the Tennessee Promise Scholarship. The first bill, (SB229/HB6) is sponsored by Senator Joey Hensley and Rep. Scott Cepicky. The legislation would create a four-year pilot program for Tennessee Promise completion grants. The grants would be made available to students who have financial strains which would keep them from remaining enrolled full-time to complete their Associate degree or certificate. The pilot program would provide $250,000 each year for the pilot to address immediate student financial hardships. The House bill passed out of the House Higher Education Subcommittee last week and passed the House Education Administration Committee on Wednesday. The bill will now go to the House Finance, Ways, and Means Committee. The Senate bill passed out of the Education Committee and will move onto the Senate Finance, Ways, and Means Committee.
The second bill, (SB1019/HB1149) is sponsored by Senator Jon Lundberg and Rep. Kirk Haston. If passed, the bill would require the Tennessee Higher Education Committee to provide all instructional materials for Tennessee Promise students free of charge. The cost of materials, such as books, would be paid out of the TN Promise reserve fund. The goal of the bill is to eliminate as many financial burdens confronting TN Promise students as possible. TICUA worked with Senator Lundberg to broaden the definition of eligible institutions from “eligible public postsecondary institutions” to simply “eligible postsecondary institutions.” This change provides eligibility for the free instructional materials to TN Promise students attending TICUA member institutions. | | | | |
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| | | | | | | | | | Senate Education Budget Hearings | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | The Tennessee Higher Education Commission presented their budget before the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday. Their budget was passed out of the Committee to the Finance, Ways, and Means Committee with a $4 million recurring improvement to the Tennessee Student Assistance Award (TSAA). The TSAA program serves as the state’s need-based student aid program. This program provides grants for students in families with a combined income of $40,000 or less.
The following reductions have been slated for the Contract Education Program. Institution | FY20 | Reduction | FY21 | Meharry Medical College | $1,170,500 | $23,400 | $1,147,100 | Southern College of Optometry | $417,400 | $8,300 | $409,100 | Diversity in Teaching | $212,000 | $4,200 | $207,800 |
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