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Committee considers Pennsylvania associate‑level addiction counselor model as one pathway to expand workforce
Summary
The advisory committee discussed a Pennsylvania model that creates an associate‑level credential intended to expand the workforce and serve as a potential career pathway. Members raised reimbursement and scope‑of‑practice questions and asked staff to obtain more information from Pennsylvania.
The Addiction Counselor Advisory Committee on Sept. 11 reviewed materials about an associate‑level addiction‑counselor credential used in Pennsylvania and discussed whether the state should study a similar pathway.
Executive Director David Fye said the board had been asked to consider creative workforce solutions and that Pennsylvania’s associate addiction‑counselor credential was one example. Fye said the BSRB’s student temporary license—about 53 currently active—has been a successful bridge to the LAC, and that an associate credential could be another route into the field.
Why it matters: members repeatedly flagged reimbursement and employer demand as the critical questions for any new credential. Several members said a credential is only valuable if employers will hire and pay for the work; others noted certain federal and state grant funding streams (block grants, state opioid response funds) may reimburse work performed by lower‑tier credentialed staff, while Medicaid and private insurance often require master‑level clinicians for reimbursement.
Committee members suggested gathering concrete information from Pennsylvania—what the credential allows practitioners to do, how employers use it, and whether it affects reimbursement—and comparing national credentialing frameworks such as the International Certification & Reciprocity Consortium (IC&RC) and NADAC alignment. Staff agreed to contact Pennsylvania for more information and bring answers back to the December meeting.
Closing: no regulatory change was adopted. Members asked staff to research how an associate credential has been implemented in other states and how it intersects with Kansas programs such as the Kansas Promise scholarship and KDADS certifications.
