Occupational Licensing and Regulation
Ohio board rewrite would expand telehealth for behavioral-health workers
The bill would rename the Chemical Dependency Professionals Board and bring peer supporters and qualified mental health professionals under one state system. It also puts telehealth and continuing-education rules into the licensing code.
Ohio would expand the reach of one licensing board over behavioral health workers. The proposal renames the Chemical Dependency Professionals Board, folds in peer supporters and qualified mental health professionals, and writes telehealth into the rules for the people it oversees.
- The board would be renamed the Behavioral Health Professionals Board.
- Peer supporters and qualified mental health professionals would fall under the same state system.
- The bill also writes telehealth into the licensing rules.
- The change affects who can practice and how care can be delivered.
- Ohio would recast its Chemical Dependency Professionals Board as the Behavioral Health Professionals Board, bringing peer supporters and qualified mental health professionals under the same umbrella
Ohio would recast its Chemical Dependency Professionals Board as the Behavioral Health Professionals Board, bringing peer supporters and qualified mental health professionals under the same umbrella. That is more than a name change. It shifts the state’s focus from a narrow addiction-licensing role to a broader system for behavioral-health credentials.
For people looking for care, the stakes are practical. Credentials decide who can legally work, what title they can use and how the state organizes the people who help clients through recovery, treatment and other behavioral-health needs.
Who the state would certify
The proposal would amend multiple Ohio Revised Code sections tied to the board and the professions it oversees. That would give the state a cleaner way to sort peer supporters and qualified mental health professionals into one regulatory structure, instead of leaving them in separate silos.
The change matters because a board does not just stamp paperwork. It sets the rules around who can enter the field and, by extension, how easy or hard it is for Ohioans to find someone licensed or certified to help them when they need support.
Telehealth gets a place in statute
The bill also reaches into telehealth. It says health care professionals under a board’s jurisdiction may provide their services as telehealth services in accordance with the section, which means remote care would be written into the same legal framework as in-person practice.
That matters in a field where distance, transportation and provider shortages can shape whether a patient gets help at all. By tying telehealth to the board’s rules, the measure would make the delivery method part of the profession’s ordinary legal setup, not an afterthought.