HJBR Nov/Dec 2020

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE I  NOV / DEC 2020 43 Karen C. Lyon, PhD APRN, NEA Chief Executive Officer Louisiana State Board of Nursing www.lsbn.state.la.us . Mobile devices are not supported (e.g., mobile phones, iPads or tablets). You must register and create a profile and password to access the portal. The biennial fees for RNs are $200 and for APRNs are $200, representing the leg- islative ceiling of $100/year for licensure fees for each type of license. The $50 late fee/license begins at 12:00 am on January 1, 2021. License expiration occurs at 12:00 am on February 1, 2021. Any nurse prac- ticing after this time without a renewed license will be disciplined for practicing without a license and will be reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) for same. Licensure renewal information was published in the July and October Exam- iner. These articles also included informa- tion about required continuing education requirements and nursing practice, the most important of which are the following revisions: • 900 hours of practice OR 30 CEUs for the 2-year licensure period. • Exceptions for initial RN licensure by exam or endorsement in 2020. • Allowance for requirements that were in place at the time the nurse previ- ously renewed (applicable options are on their previous renewal appli- cation, and the October article in the Examiner will delineate the 2 outlying circumstances). Additionally, email reminders will be sent to all nurses monthly from October through January. LSBN has prepared a FAQ sheet, which can be accessed on- line at http://www.lsbn.state.la.us/FAQS/ OnlineLicenseRenewalFAQ.aspx. The final issue that needs to be ad- dressed is multistate licensure (MSL). Louisiana became a member of the Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC) on July 1, 2019. As a result, all RNs in the state with active unencumbered licenses at that time were presented with the opportunity to convert their single state Louisiana license (SSL) to a multistate license. Amultistate license allows the holder to practice in Louisiana and the other 33 NLC states. In order to convert your single state license to a mul- tistate license, the nurse must submit a conversion application through the Loui- siana Nurse Portal and pay the application fee and the criminal background check fee. To date, 7,775 RNs have converted their single state Louisiana licenses to Louisi- ana multistate licenses. When these nurses renew their license, their new license will also be an MSL. Conversely, if a nurse has not converted their SSL to an MSL, their new license will still be an SSL. Conversion of the SSL to an MSL can only be done by completing the conversion application, having a criminal background check and paying the appropriate fees. In summary, LSBN has created a license renewal flyer, and it is reproduced above. For additional information, contact the Nurse Practice Division of LSBN at (225) 755-7520. n