Pass the rest of the health care worker compacts this year
Senate Bill 1 passed to bring NM into the interstate licensure compact for doctors. Unfortunately, 8 other compacts failed to pass for psychologists, counselors, EMTs, PAs, speech therapists & audiologists, physical & occupational therapists, & dentists. They should be passed in a special session.
By Fred Nathan, Executive Director, Think New Mexico
It was a big bipartisan win for New Mexicans when the legislature and governor enacted Senate Bill 1 to bring New Mexico into the interstate licensure compact for doctors. According to the New Mexico Medical Board, joining this compact will result in an increase of 10-15% in the number of doctors applying to practice in New Mexico annually.
Unfortunately, eight other compacts needed to address shortages of psychologists, counselors, EMTs, physician’s assistants, speech therapists and audiologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and dentists failed to pass. The need for these compacts is urgent enough that they should be passed in a special session.
Students with learning disabilities are waiting a year or more for appointments with speech therapists. During that time, their conditions worsen and become harder to treat. To reduce these wait times, New Mexico needs to join 37 other states in the Audiology and Speech Language Pathology Compact.
New Mexico needs an additional 2,326 EMTs just to meet national benchmarks. One of the sponsors of this year’s bill to join the 25 other states in the Interstate Emergency Medical Services Compact noted that constituents in her rural district often wait hours for ambulance services in medical emergencies, and lives could be saved if we joined the compact so that emergency personnel in the Texas community just across the border could more easily help patients in New Mexico.
Meanwhile 845,000 New Mexicans live in an area with fewer than one behavioral health care provider per 30,000 residents. New Mexico lawmakers recently created a $1 billion behavioral health care fund, but that money will only make an impact if there are enough psychologists and counselors to meet the need. Forty-three states, including all of New Mexico’s neighbors, are members of the Psychology Compact.
Along with increasing access to care, there is also federal money at stake. In New Mexico’s successful application for $211 million in federal funding for rural hospitals, the state pledged to join four compacts: for physicians, physician assistants, EMTs, and psychologists.
The Chief Medical Officer of the New Mexico Health Care Authority testified during the 2026 legislative session that the agency is concerned that some of that $211 million could be clawed back if the compacts are not passed this year. The state also stands to lose out on funding from the next round of federal funding this fall.
Governor Lujan Grisham has strongly supported joining all the compacts. The New Mexico House unanimously passed bills to join all of them. Unfortunately, all eight ran out of time in the Senate.
The compacts are supported by 66 organizations spanning the state and the political spectrum, including Patients Primero and health care provider groups; chambers of commerce and labor unions; Indivisible chapters and the Coalition of Conservatives in Action.
The only group that testified against them was the New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association (NMTLA). NMTLA demands that the compact be changed to allow them to sue the interstate commissions appointed by each participating state to oversee the compacts.
However, if the language is changed to accommodate the demands of NMTLA, the legislation will no longer work to bring New Mexico into the compacts. Because compacts are contracts between states, every state that seeks to participate must agree to the same substantive terms. The compact commission staff are willing to work with state legislatures on minor wording changes, as they did with Senate Bill 1 to bring New Mexico into the doctor compact.
New Mexicans urgently need greater access to the full spectrum of health care. Please ask your state senators to support the remaining eight health care worker compacts in a form that will be approved by the compact commissions, and encourage the governor to call a special session to pass them into law this year.
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