Committee hears bill to allow temporary dietitian licenses and to join an interstate compact for dietitians

Representative Tara Peters presented House Bill 397, explaining the bill would create a nonrenewable temporary license for newly credentialed dietitians who have completed required education and supervised practice but are waiting to take or receive results from the registration exam. Peters said the measure began as a narrowly targeted fix for a rural hospital but expanded to include language to adopt an interstate licensure compact for dietitians.

Jordan Mize, a registered dietitian and public policy coordinator for the Missouri Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, testified in support and said the temporary license would be available only to applicants who have completed a graduate degree and the required 1,000 hours of supervised practice; she said the temporary license would not be offered unless those prerequisites are met. Mize described testing timelines and administrative delays that can leave graduates unable to work for three to six months.

Other witnesses reinforced workforce and care-continuity arguments. Laurie Adams, owner of a multi-state nutrition practice, described how interstate licensure burdens — costs, fingerprinting and slow processing — can interrupt long-term care, especially for patients with eating disorders and for military families. Jennifer Bean, a program director at the University of Missouri, explained the compact’s mechanics: the compact uses model language developed with the Department of Defense and the Council of State Governments and requires a threshold number of adopting states before it becomes operative; the first seven adopter states form the compact commission and have representation at the rulemaking table.

Committee members asked detailed questions about the temporary license’s supervision requirements, the nonrenewable 180-day limit cited in committee discussion, whether a supervising dietitian could oversee more than one temporary licensee at a time (the draft prohibits supervising more than one), and how the temporary license interacts with accredited clinical-hour requirements. Witnesses and the presenter said the temporary license is modeled on existing temporary licensure used in other health professions in Missouri and would require direct, on-site supervision during the supervised-practice period; they said the temporary license is intended as a workforce pipeline measure rather than a lowering of professional standards.

No opposition witnesses were recorded in the transcript segment. Cox Health registered lobbyist Michael Grod also spoke in support. Committee members suggested amendments to clarify supervision parameters and to ensure the temporary license is limited to students or new graduates rather than people who repeatedly fail the exam; witnesses said testing schedules and local testing-center availability make multiple attempts feasible but that scheduling sometimes extends beyond the 180-day window.

The transcript records extensive discussion and multiple supportive testimonies but no committee vote on House Bill 397 in the provided segment.