SB 1547 authorizes the Oregon Board of Psychology to create and regulate a new license for “behavioral health and wellness practitioners.” The new license is intended for individuals who provide behavioral health promotion, prevention, brief intervention, early identification, psychoeducation, skills training, referral, and care coordination services. Applicants must meet education, supervised practice, examination, character, fee, and other board-established requirements, and licensed practitioners must work under direct supervision of specified licensed mental health or medical professionals.
The bill also defines the scope of practice and limits it carefully: these practitioners may not diagnose disorders, independently treat disorders, practice psychology or medicine, administer or interpret certain tests, or evaluate the effects of medical or psychotropic drugs. It creates title protection, disciplinary authority, relicensure rules, confidentiality provisions, and an injunction remedy for unlawful practice or misuse of the title. The bill further adds a practitioner-client privilege for communications in noninvestigatory professional settings, with exceptions for consent, complaints, threats of crime or harm, and suspected child abuse.
In addition to creating the new license, SB 1547 amends a wide range of Oregon statutes to incorporate the new practitioner into existing regulatory and reporting frameworks. Those changes include the Oregon Board of Psychology’s powers and fee authority, the Mental Health Regulatory Agency’s oversight structure, health information and Medicaid-related definitions, mandatory reporting laws for child, elder, adult, and animal abuse, and the state’s ban on conversion therapy for minors. The bill also includes a specific protection preventing discipline based solely on lawful reproductive or gender-affirming care that may be illegal in another jurisdiction.
The overall sentiment around the bill appears strongly positive and largely noncontroversial. It passed the Senate committee unanimously, then passed the Senate 27-2, the House committee unanimously, and the House 49-2, suggesting broad bipartisan support for expanding the behavioral health workforce and clarifying regulatory authority. The bill text itself was introduced at the request of the Senate Interim Committee on Early Childhood and Behavioral Health for the Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health, which also suggests an implementation-oriented, workforce-expansion purpose rather than a partisan policy fight.
The main points of contention, to the extent they are visible from the text and votes, likely center on scope-of-practice boundaries and professional regulation. The bill creates a new licensed category that can provide prevention and brief intervention services but cannot diagnose or independently treat disorders, which helps distinguish it from psychologists, counselors, social workers, and medical providers. Other potentially sensitive provisions include the explicit protection for reproductive and gender-affirming care in disciplinary decisions, and the expansion of mandatory reporting and disciplinary rules to include the new licensee category. However, the near-unanimous votes indicate these issues did not generate major recorded opposition in the available history.
SB 1547 adds a new regulated behavioral health license under the Oregon Board of Psychology and integrates that license into multiple parts of Oregon law. It amends statutes governing psychology regulation, health information confidentiality, Medicaid and behavioral health definitions, abuse reporting, supervision requirements, conversion therapy restrictions, and professional discipline. The bill expands the list of mandated reporters and regulated professionals to include licensed behavioral health and wellness practitioners, and it gives the Board of Psychology authority to license, supervise, discipline, and enjoin unlicensed practice in this new field. Most operative provisions take effect January 1, 2027.
The bill appears to have enjoyed broad support throughout the legislative process. Committee and floor votes were overwhelmingly favorable in both chambers, with only a small number of dissenting votes and no recorded committee testimony in the provided materials. The pattern suggests the bill was viewed as a workforce and access-to-care measure for behavioral health services, with little visible opposition in the available record.
The likely policy tensions involve how much authority the new license should carry and how narrowly its scope should be defined. The bill deliberately limits practitioners to promotion, prevention, and brief intervention, while prohibiting diagnosis, independent treatment, and certain testing, which helps protect existing licensed professions but may also constrain the new role. Another notable issue is the bill’s explicit bar on discipline based solely on lawful reproductive or gender-affirming care provided in Oregon but illegal elsewhere, a provision that could be politically sensitive. The expansion of mandatory reporting duties and disciplinary grounds to the new licensee category may also be a point of concern for practitioners, though the recorded votes suggest these issues did not produce significant legislative resistance.