During the 2019 legislative session, the AOA partnered with the Oklahoma Osteopathic Association to help reauthorize the Oklahoma State Board of Osteopathic Examiners for five years.
“Without this legislation, the board would have sunset in 2019,” says Raine Richards, JD, AOA director of state government affairs. An earlier version of the bill proposed a single-year reauthorization, while the version that passed extends the board’s termination date to July 1, 2024.
The AOA opposes the consolidation of any state osteopathic and medical licensure boards. In 2017, the AOA House of Delegates passed policy stating that the association will actively monitor for threats to separate state osteopathic licensing boards and will aggressively fight any efforts to consolidate state osteopathic and medical licensing boards.
Currently, 14 states have separate osteopathic and medical licensing boards, according to the Federation of State Medical Boards.