(Feb. 16, 2024) – The Kansas State Board of Healing Arts has provided an update on health care professional licensure and information that can impact licensing timelines as well as suggested best practices to avoid licensing delays. KSBHA is the executive body tasked with licensing and regulating 16 health care professions in Kansas, including physicians and physician assistants.
The Board is composed of 15 members, 12 of whom are licensed health care professionals from various professions, including eight licensed physicians. The length of time to obtain a license in Kansas varies depending on the time of year, the license type sought and the completeness of the application submitted, as well as other factors which may be personal to each applicant. In general, applicants should allow four to six weeks for an application for licensure to be processed. KSBHA notes that there may be some unique circumstances when a Kansas hospital hires an out-of-state physician to come to Kansas for employment. Occasionally, that physician may run into a delay in obtaining their Kansas license to practice for various reasons. KSBHA has shared the following ways a hospital/facility, and the applicant, may be able to help prevent or alleviate some of those delays.
- If the candidate is licensed in another state, determine if they might qualify for licensure via the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact. This is an expedited licensure process and can save weeks if your candidate qualifies. Information on the IMLC can be found here.
- Determine through the interview process (interviews and resume/CV) whether your candidate is foreign trained and/or from an accredited program. Ensure they have the required number of approved hours of post-graduate training. If they graduated from a foreign medical school or an unaccredited program, try to determine if the program is substantially equivalent to an ACGME accredited program as this can cause licensure to take longer than expected.
- Determine through the interview process (interviews) whether your candidate has anything in their background that may impact the licensure process. This could be any past professional misconduct/discipline of their license, any past legal issues (no matter how seemingly small), etc.
- If your candidate is a new graduate, start the licensure process as early as possible and send final transcripts when they are available. Otherwise, ensure the application is complete when it is sent to avoid the Licensing Analyst from needing to contact the applicant for missing requirements. Ideally, do not set a work start date until licensure has been successfully accomplished. If you do set a date, be prepared for this date to be fluid.
If your candidate has any of these issues, you may wish to consider requesting they sign a third-party release of information form. This will allow the KSBHA staff to provide you with updates if the process is taking longer than expected. The release of information form can be found here (select “Third Party Release”). The KSBHA is happy to discuss any individual and/or unique situations as they come up, please feel free to contact Susan Gile, Executive Director, Susan.Gile@ks.gov, or Rebekah Moon, Licensing Administrator at Rebekah.Moon@ks.gov.
-Karen Braman