|
Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation
leaders discussed audit findings with members of the Legislative
Audit Commission at the Illinois Capitol last week.
State Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, said physician assistants
recently told him they were going to Iowa to get licensed,
because the process took six months in Illinois.
“That’s six months of lost wages to those individuals. It’s also
six months of lost productivity to the state of Illinois. It’s
six months of lost tax revenues to the state of Illinois. If
they go to Iowa, we’ll never get them back. At the end of the
day, it’s six months of less health care to the constituents
that we all represent,” Rose said.
State Rep. Natalie Manley, D-Joliet, said she also met with the
PAs.
“Is there anything we can do to think outside the box, like a
temporary license or something that can be issued so we don’t
lose this talent?” Manley asked.
IFPR Secretary Mario Treto Jr. said his agency is working to
implement a new licensing system.
“The creation of a license for six months might create more work
in terms of balancing the implementation of that new system that
we might find resolution within those six months,” Treto said.
Treto said he hopes to have the agency’s new system for licensed
professionals fully implemented by the end of the year.
Manley wondered how professionals in other states got licenses
more quickly.
“Every state is different,” Treto said.
Rose said he understood that Treto inherited a “heck of a mess”
when he took over the agency in 2021.
|
|
