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licensing

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Businessman and team work using a Laptop Computer with Webinar E-business Browsing Connection and cloud online technology webcast concept, business concept

From Chaos to Clarity: How Human Service Leaders Bring Order to Oversight
Tuesday, December 9, 2025
12:00 pm ET
Register Here

Keeping up with inspections and licensing requirements can feel like an endless chase — especially when each site or program has its own system. Many organizations are finding new ways to bring structure, visibility, and calm to these responsibilities, even with limited resources.

Join us on Tuesday, December 9, 2025, at 12:00 pm ET for From Chaos to Clarity: How Human Service Leaders Bring Order to Oversight, a live webinar co-hosted by RCPA and PUPS Software. This session brings together leaders for an open, practical conversation about streamlining inspections, licensing, and operational readiness.

Featured Panelists:

  • Jim Sharp, Chief Operating Officer & Director of Mental Health Services, RCPA
  • Savannah David, Service Director – ID/A NE Region, Step By Step, Inc.
  • Morgan Gerety, Director of Maintenance, Caring, Inc.

We’ll talk about:

  • Practical steps to bring consistency and visibility to inspections and licensing;
  • How to move from paper and spreadsheets to digital processes without overwhelming your team;
  • Real examples of accountability and readiness in action; and
  • Lessons learned from organizations that replaced annual scrambles with steady progress.

Whether your team is just getting started or already modernizing oversight, you will walk away with useful ideas, peer insights, and tools to support your next steps.

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Businessman and team work using a Laptop Computer with Webinar E-business Browsing Connection and cloud online technology webcast concept, business concept

From Chaos to Clarity: How Human Service Leaders Bring Order to Oversight
Tuesday, December 9, 2025
12:00 pm ET
Register Here

Keeping up with inspections and licensing requirements can feel like an endless chase — especially when each site or program has its own system. Many organizations are finding new ways to bring structure, visibility, and calm to these responsibilities, even with limited resources.

Join us on Tuesday, December 9, 2025, at 12:00 pm ET for From Chaos to Clarity: How Human Service Leaders Bring Order to Oversight, a live webinar co-hosted by RCPA and PUPS Software. This session brings together leaders for an open, practical conversation about streamlining inspections, licensing, and operational readiness.

Featured Panelists:

  • Jim Sharp, Chief Operating Officer & Director of Mental Health Services, RCPA
  • Savannah David, Service Director – ID/A NE Region, Step By Step, Inc.
  • Morgan Gerety, Director of Maintenance, Caring, Inc.

We’ll talk about:

  • Practical steps to bring consistency and visibility to inspections and licensing;
  • How to move from paper and spreadsheets to digital processes without overwhelming your team;
  • Real examples of accountability and readiness in action; and
  • Lessons learned from organizations that replaced annual scrambles with steady progress.

Whether your team is just getting started or already modernizing oversight, you will walk away with useful ideas, peer insights, and tools to support your next steps.

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Despite opposition and concerns from substance use disorder (SUD) treatment providers, single county authorities, primary contractors, and behavioral health managed care organizations, the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs (DDAP) will begin licensing telehealth-only SUD treatment providers.

DDAP will issue a licensing alert on Wednesday, December 4, detailing the new licensure category.

Organizations newly licensed under this tele-only category will be able to provide intake, evaluation, and referral services, as well as outpatient treatment, including partial hospitalization services, via telehealth only, without a physical plant location in Pennsylvania.

DDAP’s intention in licensing telehealth-only providers is to hold them to the same standards as facility-based providers as a way to ensure equity and maintain operational standards. DDAP will continue to monitor complaints and unusual incidents for all licensed providers, as well as the number of telehealth-only license applications that are made over time, looking for any trends that could require additional action.

RCPA and its provider members opposed creation of the new license, citing patient safety and quality concerns, as well as potential erosion of the community-based provider system. RCPA hosted DDAP for a discussion about its concerns, met one-on-one with the department, and provided written feedback to DDAP. In addition, RCPA met with the governor’s Policy Office, to discuss provider concerns.

DDAP will attend RCPA’s next SUD Committee meeting at 11:00 am on Tuesday, December 10. RCPA has asked DDAP to discuss the new license category. RCPA members wanting to attend this meeting can register here.

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The Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (OMHSAS) is working on developing Regulatory Compliance Guides (RCG) for each licensed level of care to support their commitment to quality in licensing. The RCG is a tool for providers, OMHSAS staff, and the public to better understand the regulations.

This Regulatory Compliance Guide is a companion piece to 55 Pa. Code Chapter 5200. It is intended to be a helpful reference for these regulations. The explanatory material contained in this guide in no way supplants the plain meaning and intent of the regulations set forth in Chapter 5200.

OMHSAS issued the first version of the Psychiatric Outpatient Clinic RCG in November 2021. Today, they are reissuing an updated Psychiatric Outpatient Clinic RCG. The changes made were primarily to language and updates based on comments received on the original document.

Feedback or questions on the RCG can be sent electronically.

If you have any questions, please contact RCPA COO Jim Sharp.

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Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

An announcement was issued today regarding the Bureau Director for the Bureau of Human Services Licensing (BHSL) for the Department of Human Services (DHS). The current Bureau Director, Jeanne Parisi, has accepted the Deputy Secretary position for Quality Assurance at the Department of Health, effective March 20, 2023. Brian MacDaid has been appointed Acting Bureau Director, also effective March 20, 2023. Brian has worked for the Commonwealth in DHS for the past 22 years and currently works for the Office of Long-Term Living (OLTL) in the Bureau of Quality Assurance and Program Analytics as the Director of the Quality Assurance Division.

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Governor Shapiro is directing all state agencies, boards, and commissions to compile a catalog of the licenses, certificates, and permits they issue – including the statutory authority governing the length of time they must process applications and the application fee charged by each agency. Commonwealth agencies will have 90 days to send this information to the Governor’s Office, which will then review, analyze, and establish efficient application processing times for all occupational permits or licenses based on agency recommendations. Once those recommendations are put in place, if an agency does not respond to an applicant before the date-certain, the agency will be required to refund the application fee.

Under this Executive Order, the Governor’s Office will also conduct a review of the existing digital services that Pennsylvanians use to apply for licenses, certificates, and permits and work to modernize those application platforms and services to better serve Pennsylvanians.

Unpredictability and long wait times for Commonwealth-issued licenses, certificates, and permits can create unnecessary barriers for Pennsylvania workers and businesses. For example, an NPR analysis from 2021 found that Pennsylvania had some of the longest wait times in the country for issuing nursing licenses. More than half of the nursing applicants who applied in Pennsylvania that year waited at least three months to hear back.

In addition to nursing licenses, the Commonwealth issues hundreds of licenses, certificates, and permits, from barber and salon licenses to teacher certifications to business permits. Under the direction of the Governor, the Administration will work expeditiously to ensure Pennsylvanians get responses in a timely manner — and the Shapiro Administration will have real skin in the game. Governor Shapiro is making clear his Administration will be customer-service oriented and that state government will work harder to get them a response, so that they can pursue their dreams.

Read Executive Order 2023-07, Building Efficiency in the Commonwealth’s Permitting and Licensing Processes, here.

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