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Click here to view Congressman Guthrie’s remarks on the House floor today in support of the Sports Medicine Licensure Clarity Act.

Washington, DC– The U.S. House of Representatives today passed Congressman Brett Guthrie’s (KY-02) Sports Medicine Licensure Clarity Act by a vote of 398 to 23.

Currently, many states do not offer legal protection for sports medicine practitioners who travel withhigh school, college, orprofessional sports teams to provide care at out-of-state competitions. Guthrie introduced the Sports Medicine Licensure Clarity Act with Congressman Cedric Richmond (D-LA) to ensure that these professionals are covered under their home-state medical liability insurance when they travel with their teams, rather than needing to obtain a new license for each state.

“Currently health care providers are licensed state by state, and their coverage is limited to practice in that state only,”said Guthrie. “If a health care provider travels out-of-state with a sports team – professional, college, or high school – and takes care of the players that they’re responsible for, they could be practicing beyond the scope of their license if they don’t have a separate license for each state. The Sports Medicine Licensure Clarity Act is a bipartisan, commonsense solution that will make it possible for team doctors to travel with their teams and still maintain the protections of their home state licenses.”

The House originally passed the Sports Medicine Licensure Clarity Act unanimously on January 5, 2017, followed by unanimous passage in the Senate on September 6, 2018. For procedural reasons, this bill became the base text for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Reauthorization Act and passed today with the FAA legislation included. Following Senate passage in the coming days, it is expected to be signed into law.

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