Bill Approved to Address Medical Licensure Delays

The Illinois General Assembly has approved legislation to address the long delays in granting and renewing medical licenses. The legislature passed HB 2394 (Morgan, D-Highwood) during the recently completed fall Veto Session. Lawmakers met October 24-26 and November 7-9 in the Capitol in Springfield.

The Illinois Chiropractic Society (ICS) joined other healthcare organizations in the spring to discuss with legislators the ongoing problems with the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) license granting process. Glitches in the IDFPR online renewal software caused significant problems this summer for chiropractic physicians and other medical licensees attempting to renew their licenses. The situation became so problematic that the department had to delay the license renewal deadline for an extra month.

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Circumstances were even worse for new medical school graduates applying for their initial license under the Illinois Medical Practice Act. Where most states issue new licenses in approximately 2 to 4 weeks, some Illinois medical license applicants have waited anywhere between four and six months to receive their licenses to practice. These delays caused significant hardship for new healthcare providers, as they were not permitted to begin to practice their professions for months before their licenses were issued.

With healthcare providers and the organizations that represent them pleading with lawmakers to address the licensure problem, pressure mounted. A rare off-session hearing to address the issue was held by the House Health Care Licenses Committee in Chicago in September in Chicago.  At the hearing, IDFPR Secretary Mario Treto, Jr. spoke on behalf of the department, citing an antiquated software system, delays in the state procurement system, and a lack of appropriations to hire additional staff as the major causes of licensure delays. The ICS submitted written testimony to the committee outlining the significant burdens that the issue has placed on chiropractic physicians.

HB 2394 attempts to address these issues as follows:

• It grants the IDFPR emergency rulemaking authority to put the necessary remedies in place immediately;
• It grants the IDFPR Secretary the authority to extend the expiration date of license categories or the renewal date of licenses as needed, in its discretion, if delays are causing hardship for a category of applicants;
• It allows the IDFPR Secretary to waive license late fees in cases where department delays caused the applicant to miss a licensure or renewal deadline;
• It allows the department to immediately begin procurement of new licensing software to perform all licensing and license renewals electronically. It requires an expedited and competitive bidding process and would have a contract in place for the new software within 90 days of the bill’s effective date.
• All of the emergency authority for the department would expire in one year.

The bill is pending the signature of the Governor.