The professional counseling advisory committee for the Kansas Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board was briefed May 12 on the status of a multistate counseling compact and the potential effects on licensing revenue and service availability.

Chair Laura Shaughnessy said she had spoken with Greg Searls, the compact executive director, and that states are close to clarifying a launch date. Committee members asked whether compact privilege fees would be publicly posted and what other states plan to charge.

David Fye said Kansas is considering a $25 compact privilege fee for out‑of‑state practitioners who wish to provide services in Kansas under compact privileges. "We are looking at in Kansas at $25," he said, and added that other states he had seen charged roughly $20–$35. Fye cautioned some states may set privilege fees equal to their full license fee to avoid revenue loss.

Fye also offered data from the psychology compact experience (referred to in the meeting as SIPAC) to show possible impacts on licensure counts and telehealth service delivery. He reported that, in a June–July 2024 comparison, Kansas lost about 20 psychologist licensees but identified roughly 40 unique individuals per quarter providing services into Kansas via compact privileges, which he estimated might amount to about 50 different providers over a year. "So long story short, these licensees, we lost about 20 licensees, but there were about a 50 other people providing some level of telehealth service into Kansas," he said, while noting the board does not track hours of service per provider.

Committee members asked whether staff could obtain and share a rubric or public fee list from the compact office; Shaughnessy and Fye agreed to request any sharable data from Greg Searls and circulate it to the advisory committee. Members discussed tradeoffs between lost out‑of‑state license revenue and increased service availability through privileges and emphasized that full effects will be clearer only after several years of compact operation.

The advisory committee took no formal action on compact policy during the meeting but asked staff to gather comparative fee information and longer-term data on service delivery to inform future discussion.