OSSPEAC participates with other speech language pathology and audiology professional organizations in the Ohio Speech and Hearing Governmental Affairs Coalition(OSHGAC).  Each year we target critical legislative issues for Ohio.  Here are the targets for this upcoming year.

CRITICAL ISSUES in 2010

Medicaid: Digital Hearing Aids- Ohio Medicaid rules allow adult consumers to be fit with only analog hearing aids.  This means that adult Medicaid consumers cannot benefit from digital hearing aid technology, which seriously limits an audiologist's ability to appropriately fit this population.  Further, all of the major hearing aid manufacturers have already or are currently in the process of discontinuing production of conventional hearing aids.  Thus, Ohio Medicaid must revise its rules to allow adult consumers to be fit with digital hearing aids.

School Staffing Shortages- Working with ODE, OSHGAC supported the creation of the SLP student permit program, which places supervised second year speech-language patholgy students in public schools to provide services in underserved areas.  With this groundbreaking program in place, once there are a sufficient number of SLPs working in the schools, we will work to lower Ohio's SLP caseload ration (80:1), wich is the highest in the nation.

Rehabilitation Services Commission: Audiology Services- RSC has been considering changes to its policies and procedures for the provision of hearing aids to its vocational rehabilitation clients.   OSHGAC had been working with RSC to establish a standardized hearing aid protocol that allows clients to be fit with the appropriate technology, providers to be appropriately compensated for their services, and RSC to control its expenditures for these important services.

Autism Parity Legislation- OSHGAC supports the passage of HB8, the autism insurance parity legislation.  Audiologists and speech-language pathologists play an important role in assessing and helping to treat individuals with autism.  As such, we recognize the importance of insurance coverage in allowing families to access qualtiy care for their loved ones with autism spectrum disorder.

 
Legislative Report

The June 2010 Legislative Update is available for download below.  OSHGAC does not meet during July and August so look for the next legislative update in September!