Board hears mixed licensing trends, low exam pass rates in some programs and calls to revise degree names and curriculum

Jay Hirt, the board’s licensing manager, presented the licensing report for fiscal year 2024–25 Q3, telling members the board’s active license count and exam statistics and summarizing continuing education and program approval activity.

“As of Q3, our active licenses were 10,109, inactive licenses were 1,441, delinquent licenses were 1,614,” Hirt said, and he outlined other license categories including wallet licenses and canceled licenses. Hirt reported the board approved 57 initial licensing applications in Q3 and provided continuing education metrics (e.g., 695 course applications received and 559 approved in Q3). He said first‑time exam takers had a 72% pass rate; the overall pass rate (including retakers) was 61%. By language, he reported pass rates of roughly 68% for Chinese, 60% for English, and 55% for Korean test takers.

Board members probed delinquent‑license trends and whether the increase reflected online‑renewal issues or other causes. Hirt and staff said month‑9 data make trend analysis preliminary and that more months of data (and licensing report details) will help. Members also discussed the decline in new licensing and school enrollment and noted a small bump in canceled licenses in Q3.

The board and staff also discussed the tutorial training program, which Hirt reported has 62 active tutorial programs; five new program approvals and two terminated/abandoned programs were noted for the quarter. Executive Officer Ben Bodhi said a prior fee analysis found it cost the board roughly $11,000 to process and supervise a completed tutorial program and observed that the board set tutorial fees at a statutory fee floor; he said staff may propose fee changes by regulation if warranted.

At a separate licensing committee meeting on June 12 (reported to the full board June 13), committee members and stakeholders extensively discussed degree and title naming, curriculum prerequisites and science course requirements, clinical hours and externship/internship placement, English proficiency standards for foreign‑trained tutorial students, and clean needle technique standards. Committee Chair Dr. Amy Matecki summarized the items discussed and recommended continued stakeholder work; the committee did not forward regulatory language or a formal board action at this session.

Discussion points included whether to adopt a unified doctoral title (members discussed variations such as Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine / DAChM or Doctor of Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine / DACIM), how to balance in‑school clinical hours (California currently requires about 950 clinical hours) with externships, and whether to add or raise prerequisite and English proficiency requirements for certain pathways. Several public commenters and board members argued that improving clinical competencies, externship pathways and marketing/business training for graduates could help graduate employability and support school enrollment.

No formal rule changes or title adoptions were made at the board meeting; staff and the licensing committee will continue stakeholder discussions and are expected to return proposed regulatory language or further committee recommendations in future meetings.