The Federation of Texas Psychiatry maintains a page titled "Psychologists Prescribing" in opposition to prescriptive authority for psychologists in Texas.
The American Medical Association published its current national position on September 25, 2025.
The claims below are quoted from those two sources and answered from the peer-reviewed literature, government data, and the text of House Bill 5537 as filed in the 89th Legislature.
Training
"Psychologists can obtain their degree by taking only one or two courses in the biological bases of behavior."
(Federation of Texas Psychiatry)
The claim describes the doctoral degree. No state authorizes a psychologist to prescribe based solely on the doctoral degree. HB 5537 as filed requires a licensed psychologist to complete a postdoctoral psychopharmacology program, two supervised practica, a national examination, and two years of supervised prescribing before an unrestricted certificate may be issued; the requirements are set out below under “What HB 5537 as filed requires”. The Training page sets out how the pharmacology content of this pathway compares with other prescribing professions.
"The model psychopharmacology educational program endorsed by the American Psychological Association… only requires the didactic curriculum contain 400 contact hours."
(AMA, September 25, 2025)
The 400-hour figure is accurate. Four hundred contact hours is the minimum the APA sets for coursework, classes only. The rest of the standard requires a doctorate in psychology, a state license, supervised training in physical assessment, and a supervised prescribing fellowship treating at least 100 patients. HB 5537 as filed requires all of it, and adds a national exam and two years of supervised prescribing before a psychologist may prescribe independently (§§501.372(b), 501.373(b)).
"The discontinued and terminated PDP’s training requirements are significantly more stringent than the 300+ hours of instruction (unsupervised weekend courses) sought by psychologists who are supporting prescription authority from state legislatures."
(Federation of Texas Psychiatry)
Under HB 5537 as filed, a psychologist completes at least 400 hours of coursework through an APA-designated program and 480 hours of supervised practice with patients before prescribing at all, then prescribes for two years under a supervising clinician before prescribing alone. None of it is unsupervised, and none of it is a weekend course. The military program's record is addressed further below.
Safety and Medical Complexity
"Prescribing psychologists would not be able to safely treat psychiatric patients with multiple medical illnesses, which constitute over 50% of the patient population."
(Federation of Texas Psychiatry)
A 2025 study in American Psychologist examined commercial insurance claims for 307,478 patients in New Mexico and Louisiana who received psychotropic medication from prescribing psychologists, psychiatrists, or primary care physicians between 2004 and 2021. Measured on the Charlson Comorbidity Index, patients of prescribing psychologists and patients of psychiatrists carried similar levels of physical illness, and the two groups resembled each other in diagnosis as well, including higher rates of bipolar and psychotic disorders than the primary care group. The Crisis page sets out the companion study comparing adverse drug events across the same patient population.
"Medical conditions can be overlooked… It really doesn't happen unless you have that experience and that clinical judgment that comes with having seen thousands of patients over many years."
(AMA, September 25, 2025, quoting Dr. Rebecca Brendel)
In a 2012 survey of 47 providers at a family medicine clinic with an embedded prescribing psychologist, 93.6 percent agreed that the prescribing psychologist made appropriate referral decisions, 95.7 percent agreed that medications and dosages were appropriate, and 93.6 percent agreed that it was safe to refer their patients for psychotropic medication management.
"Many of the proposed and enacted laws that extend prescriptive authority to psychologists do not make exceptions for children, pregnant patients, older adults, or those patients considered medically complex."
(AMA, September 25, 2025)
This description is accurate for HB 5537 as filed: the bill contains no categorical exclusions. However, the bill does address those patients through the content of the training and who reviews the prescribing. The bill requires coursework through an APA-designated program, and APA's criteria list pediatric psychopharmacology, geriatric psychopharmacology, and prescribing for pregnant and chronically ill patients as required content (Domains VI, X–XI). The advisory committee must include a pediatrician or a primary care physician experienced with children. Every new or changed prescription must reach the patient's primary care practitioner within 72 hours. The Executive Council may set further standards of practice by rule (§§501.152(a-1), 501.372(b), 501.375, 501.385).
Need and Distribution
"In Texas, physicians and psychiatrists far out number psychologists, including in rural areas… psychiatrists are located in 15 more counties."
(Federation of Texas Psychiatry)
The Texas Department of State Health Services' Health Profession Supply dashboard counts 5,320 licensed psychologists and 2,897 psychiatrists in Texas for 2025, which is roughly 1.8 psychologists for every psychiatrist. The same 2025 tables show 141 counties with no licensed psychologist and 162 counties with no psychiatrist, a figure the department also reported to the House Committee on Public Health in June 2026. Psychiatrists are absent from 21 more Texas counties than psychologists.
"Nonphysicians—including psychologists—tend to practice in the same areas as physicians, including psychiatrists… Efforts to improperly extend prescriptive power to psychologists have not improved access."
(AMA, September 25, 2025)
A 2025 study tracked mental health establishments county by county from 2000 to 2019 across the states that enacted prescriptive authority. The policy produced 0.8 additional psychology offices per 100,000 residents per county, often in counties that had no mental or behavioral health care options before the change. Texas has 141 such counties.
Cost
"Granting psychologists prescribing authority will increase health care costs with no apparent benefit to society. More providers prescribing medications means more prescriptions being written."
(Federation of Texas Psychiatry)
"Granting prescriptive authority to psychologists is a high-cost, low-impact response to the mental health crisis."
(AMA, September 25, 2025, quoting AMA CEO John Whyte)
A 2023 analysis modeled the policy's costs and effects over 20 years for a population of 100,000 people. It projected 805 fewer suicide deaths and 844 fewer suicide attempts. Implementing the policy cost $22.67 million in the model, and once costs beyond medical bills were counted, total costs were lower with the policy than without it — better outcomes at lower overall cost. On the volume of prescribing, a 2025 study found that prescribing psychologists discontinued medications without replacement more often than psychiatrists and less often than primary care physicians.
The Military Program
"The U.S. Department of Defense's Psychopharmacology Demonstration Program (PDP) was terminated by Congress in 1996… the General Accounting Office strongly criticized the PDP as 'not adequately justified because the [military health system] has not demonstrated need for them, the cost is substantial, and the benefits uncertain.'"
(Federation of Texas Psychiatry, quoting GAO)
The quoted language is from GAO's April 1997 report, whose stated grounds were need and cost (the military already employed more psychiatrists than it needed), not the quality of the graduates' care. GAO reviewed the program again in June 1999 and examined that quality directly. Every supervising psychiatrist GAO interviewed rated the ten psychologist graduates' care as good; an independent panel of psychiatrists and psychologists rated it good to excellent; GAO found no adverse patient outcomes. The Federation's page does not mention the 1999 report. The program ended in June 1997 under the 1996 Defense Authorization Act, and the same law permitted the graduates to continue prescribing.
"The training requirements in the PDP were downgraded from over 1,400 hours to 700+ hours when 50% of the initial class failed."
(Federation of Texas Psychiatry)
The hour figures trace to the program's independent evaluator, the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Its May 1998 final report gives 1,418 didactic hours for the first class and 712 for the three later classes, and attributes the reduction to tailoring medical-school course detail to the prescribing role. The same report records what happened in the first class of four students: two completed the program, one transferred to the university's medical school, and one resigned from the service. Neither the ACNP report nor either GAO report records that anyone failed. Across all four classes, thirteen psychologists entered, and ten graduated.
What HB 5537 As Filed Requires
"According to the Texas Occupations Code which is the psychologists' licensure act, the 'practice of psychology' is limited to: 1) using projective techniques, neuropsychological testing, counseling, career counseling, psychotherapy, hypnosis for health care purposes, hypnotherapy, and biofeedback; and, 2) evaluating and treating mental or emotional disorders and disabilities by psychological techniques and procedures. They are not permitted to 'practice medicine.'"
(Federation of Texas Psychiatry)
The statement describes current law. HB 5537 as filed amends Section 501.003 of the Occupations Code to bring prescribing under a new certificate within the practice of psychology. A conditional certificate requires a Texas psychology license, an APA-designated or Council-approved postdoctoral program covering neuroscience, pharmacology, pathophysiology, and physical assessment, a national examination, an 80-hour physician-supervised assessment practicum, a 400-hour practicum treating at least 100 patients, and professional liability coverage. All prescribing under it occurs under a named supervising clinician — a physician or an experienced prescribing psychologist, supervising no more than seven certificate holders at a time.
A full certificate requires two years of supervised prescribing and an independent peer review. Certificate holders must notify the patient's primary care practitioner within 72 hours of any psychotropic prescription or change, must identify themselves as certified psychologists on every prescription, and are subject to the Prescription Monitoring Program; the Executive Council may deny, suspend, or revoke a certificate for any violation (§§501.372–501.384).
Support and Opposition
"In a statewide survey taken in February 2000, the vast majority of Texans (72%) opposed legislatively granting prescription privileges to psychologists."
(Federation of Texas Psychiatry)
The page names no pollster, no sponsor, no question, and no sample size. The figure appears in no polling archive, newspaper, or published study — only on the Federation's own page. No state had enacted prescriptive authority in 2000. Eight states have enacted prescriptive authority since: New Mexico, Louisiana, Illinois, Iowa, Idaho, Colorado, Utah, and Vermont. Hawaii has separately enacted a supervised, two-island pilot program.
"Many psychologists, including practitioners and academicians, vigorously oppose prescribing authority for psychologists."
(Federation of Texas Psychiatry, citing a 1995 resolution)
The resolution they are citing is thirty years old. In December 2025, the National Register of Health Service Psychologists, the largest credentialing organization for health service psychologists, published a position paper supporting prescriptive authority for appropriately trained and credentialed psychologists. In August 2025, the American Psychological Association's Council of Representatives approved revised Guidelines for Psychologists' Involvement in Pharmacological Issues.
The Federation of Texas Psychiatry's page cites a survey from February 2000, a resolution from 1995, two advocacy-group statements from 2002, and a federal audit from 1997.
It cites no peer-reviewed study of patient outcomes.
*Quotations are reproduced from publicly available statements of the organizations named. Analysis is Texas RxP’s own.