71-6223 Letter of intent; application; contents. - Nebraska Statutes

71-6223. Letter of intent; application; contents.An applicant group shall submit a letter of intent to file an application to the director on forms prescribed by the director. The letter of intent shall identify the applicant group, the proposed regulation or change in scope of practice sought, and information sufficient for the director to determine whether the application is eligible for review. The director shall notify the applicant group as to whether it is eligible for review within fifteen days of the receipt of the letter of intent. The final application shall be submitted to the director who shall notify the applicant group of its acceptance for review within fifteen days of receipt of the final application. If more than one application is received in a given year, the director may establish the order in which applications shall be reviewed. The application shall include an explanation of:(1) The problem and why regulation or change of the scope of practice of a health profession is necessary, including (a) the nature of the potential harm to the public if the health profession is not regulated or the scope of practice of a health profession is not changed and the extent to which there is a threat to public health and safety, (b) the extent to which consumers need, and will benefit from, a method of regulation identifying competent practitioners and indicating typical employers, if any, of practitioners in the health profession, and (c) the extent of autonomy a practitioner has, as indicated by the extent to which the health profession calls for independent judgment, the extent of skill or experience required in making the independent judgment, and the extent to which practitioners are supervised;(2) The efforts made to address the problem, including (a) voluntary efforts, if any, by members of the health profession to establish a code of ethics or help resolve disputes between health practitioners and consumers and (b) recourse to, and the extent of use of, applicable law and whether present law could be strengthened to control the problem;(3) If the application is for the regulation of an unregulated health profession, an analysis of all feasible methods of regulation, including those methods listed in section 71-6222, identifying why each method is or is not appropriate for regulation of the profession;(4) The benefit to the public if the health profession is regulated or the scope of practice of a health profession is changed, including:(a) The extent to which the incidence of specific problems present in the unregulated health profession can reasonably be expected to be reduced by regulation;(b) Whether the public can identify qualified practitioners;(c) The extent to which the public can be confident that qualified practitioners are competent, as determined by:(i) Whether the proposed regulatory entity would be a board composed of members of the profession and public members or a state agency, or both, and, if appropriate, their respective responsibilities in administering the system of registration, certification, or licensure, including the composition of the board and the number of public members, if any; the powers and duties of the board or state agency regarding examination and revocation, suspension, and nonrenewal of registrations, certificates, or licenses; the adoption and promulgation of rules and canons of ethics; the conduct of inspections; the receipt of complaints and disciplinary action taken against practitioners; and how fees would be levied and collected to cover the expenses of administering and operating the regulatory system;(ii) If there is a grandfather clause, whether such practitioners will be required to meet the prerequisite qualifications established by the regulatory entity at a later date;(iii) The nature of the standards proposed for registration, certification, or licensure as compared with the standards of other jurisdictions;(iv) Whether the regulatory entity would be authorized to enter into reciprocity agreements with other jurisdictions; and(v) The nature and duration of any training including, but not limited to, whether the training includes a substantial amount of supervised field experience; whether training programs exist in this state; if there will be an experience requirement; whether the experience must be acquired under a registered, certified, or licensed practitioner; whether there are alternative routes of entry or methods of meeting the prerequisite qualifications; whether all applicants will be required to pass an examination; and if an examination is required, by whom it will be developed and how the costs of development will be met; and(d) Assurance of the public that practitioners have maintained their competence, including whether the registration, certification, or licensure will carry an expiration date and whether renewal will be based only upon payment of a fee or will involve reexamination, peer review, or other enforcement;(5) The extent to which regulation or the change of scope of practice might harm the public, including:(a) The extent to which regulation will restrict entry into the health profession as determined by (i) whether the proposed standards are more restrictive than necessary to ensure safe and effective performance and (ii) whether the proposed legislation requires registered, certificated, or licensed practitioners in other jurisdictions who migrate to this state to qualify in the same manner as state applicants for registration, certification, and licensure when the other jurisdiction has substantially equivalent requirements for registration, certification, or licensure as those in this state; and(b) Whether there are similar professions to that of the applicant group which should be included in, or portions of the applicant group which should be excluded from, the proposed legislation;(6) The maintenance of standards, including (a) whether effective quality assurance standards exist in the health profession, such as legal requirements associated with specific programs that define or enforce standards or a code of ethics, and (b) how the proposed legislation will assure quality as determined by the extent to which a code of ethics, if any, will be adopted and the grounds for suspension or revocation of registration, certification, or licensure;(7) A description of the group proposed for regulation, including a list of associations, organizations, and other groups representing the practitioners in this state, an estimate of the number of practitioners in each group, and whether the groups represent different levels of practice; and(8) The expected costs of regulation, including (a) the impact registration, certification, or licensure will have on the costs of the services to the public and (b) the cost to the state and to the general public of implementing the proposed legislation. SourceLaws 1985, LB 407, § 23; Laws 1988, LB 384, § 9.