House Health and Welfare approves multi-agency licensing rule rewrites, rejects one temporary pharmacy rule

The Idaho House Health and Welfare Committee reviewed and voted on a package of rule dockets from the Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses affecting pharmacy, medicine, physician assistants and several allied health professions, rejecting one temporary pharmacy chapter and approving the remainder with targeted exceptions.

The votes on the dockets affect how boards organize rule chapters, where licensure and practice standards are located, and how fees and reporting requirements are administered. The committee’s actions ranged from voice votes approving consolidated chapters to a roll-call decision on a disputed physicians assistant provision.

Nikki Chopsky, bureau chief for the Health Professions Bureau at the Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses and executive officer for several of the presenting boards, told the committee the division and boards followed open‑meeting and negotiated‑rulemaking processes: "The division and the board held 5 open public, open public board meetings, 2 negotiated rule making hearings, and 1 public hearing." She detailed that the pharmacy rewrite included more than 35 changes, reorganizing definitions, licensure sections, practice standards and the prescription drug monitoring reporting rule.

A temporary Board of Pharmacy rule chapter that the board asked to be allowed to expire was the first contested item. Following the board’s request to take no action (thereby allowing the temporary chapter to expire upon sine die), Representative Redmond moved to reject the temporary…