Change to “On-Premesis” Definition and Ending of COVID Emergency Telehealth Orders- Update 06/24/26

Hi everyone,

This is an update to two major points regarding how registered interns currently practice in the state of FL- the implementing of the COVID Emergency Telehealth Orders into statutes fully and the adjustment to the definition of “on-premesis.” These were decided at the May 2026 and the January 2026 meeting, respectively. These will officially take effect 07/06/26. 

You can find the full updated rule here (thanks Zoe Eva for seeing the change and notifying!): https://flrules.org/gateway/ChapterHome.asp?Chapter=64B4-2 . See “ 64.B4-2.002 Definition of “Supervision” and “Premises” for Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy and Mental Health Counseling”

So, to address each point specifically, as of 07/06/26:

COVID Emergency Telehealth Orders (the “fully virtual supervision or return to 50/50” discussion)

These are now standard to statute. The relevant sections are as follows:

“(3) The supervisor and intern may utilize face-to-face electronic methods to conduct the supervisory sessions; however, the supervisor and intern must have in-person face-to-face contact for at least 50% of all of the interactions required in subsection (1), above. Prior to utilizing any online or interactive methods for supervision, the supervisor and the intern shall have at least one in-person face-to-face meeting. The supervisor and the intern are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of the clients during both in-person and online or interactive supervisory sessions.

(4) If an intern obtains group supervision, each hour of group supervision must alternate with an hour of individual supervision. Group supervision must be conducted with all participants present in-person. For the purpose of this section, individual supervision is defined as one qualified supervisor supervising no more than two (2) interns and group supervision is defined as one qualified supervisor supervising more than 2 but a maximum of 6 interns in the group.

(b) The registered intern and their qualified supervisor have determined, through their professional judgements, that providing face-to-face psychotherapy by electronic methods is not detrimental to the client is necessary to protect the health, safety, or welfare of the client, the registered intern, or both, and does not violate any existing statutes or regulations.

(7) Notwithstanding subsections (3) and (4) above a qualified supervisor may utilize face-to-face electronic methods, including telephone only communication, to conduct all supervisory sessions for internship hours if the qualified supervisor determines, through their professional judgment, that such methods are not detrimental to the registered intern’s clients and are necessary to protect the health, safety, or welfare of the qualified supervisor, the registered intern, or both. Any clinical hours obtained via face-to-face psychotherapy by electronic means shall be considered clinical hours for the purpose of meeting internship requirements.”

This DOES NOT mean that you can now completely disregard sections 3 and 4. This means that virtual supervision may continue if “such methods are not detrimental to the registered intern’s clients and are necessary to protect the health, safety, or welfare of the qualified supervisor, the registered intern, or both.” We interpret that to mean that you will require a level of justification in order to continue fully remote, such that you go through a process to determine that it is not detrimental to the welfare of the different people involved. If the board wanted to completely get rid of sections 3 and 4, they would need a legislative change. 

Our recommendation is that if you plan to continue qualified supervision fully virtually as a registered intern or QS, that you are documenting somewhere your justification for doing so and how you are monitoring that staying fully virtual is not detrimental. We do not know how/if board staff will ask for this moving forward- COVID was a very easy reason to justify that, but now it may be on a more case by case basis. Do NOT get caught up thinking that it is free reign to do supervision fully virtually. We need time to see how board staff and board members respond to this.

If you have the capacity to do in-person supervision, we recommend that you resume doing that at least up to the 50%. The amount of interns who were getting supervision via phone and never actually meeting their QS in person and then going up in front of the board because of a problem with how they were doing things last meeting was honestly ridiculous imo.

Changes to “on-premesis” Definition

These are the changes defining what “on the premises" means for licensed clinicians and registered interns. Here is the actual statute:

“(8) The phrase “on the premises” as used in Sections 491.005(1)(d), (3)(d), and (4)(d), F.S., includes a licensed mental health professional being present and available to the registered intern via telehealth or other synchronous electronic means provided that the telehealth protocol and safety plan in place between the intern and their qualified supervisor addresses same.”

This is a HUGE change to the way that Registered Interns work and will change the landscape of how work is done in the state for PP. This will allow Registered Interns to essentially work from home in PP, so long as there is a Telehealth Safety Plan on file with the Registered Intern’s Qualified Supervisor AND there is an assigned licensed mental health professional willing to present immediately on any requests from the Registered Intern via synchronous electronic means (so, by phone or by video).

Now, just because this is now going to be allowed, does not mean you as a Registered Intern are ready to fully work remotely from your house There needs to be structures in place to allow for that to happen, moreso than just when you are located at a physical office.

For Registered Interns:

• You need a Telehealth Safety Protocol on file with your QS. I imagine in the event of an issue with working telehealth this will be requested and reviewed by the board in the event of a problem being investigated. If you don’t know what that is, please review the board website and also review the document that is freely available here on the group and on our website as an example.

• You need to know EXACTLY who will be overseeing you when working from home or alone in office and who you will be calling in the event of a problem. I would be sure to prove who that is each time that you work.

• If there is a protocol your practice or you have that is in place to manage risk assessment, having that on file and also incorporating the above points into that 

is very helpful.

For Qualified Supervisors:

• Your Registered Interns will be able to practice telehealth from their home now, depending on what their job allows. BE PREPARED FOR THAT. We all knew that it was pretty much already happening (right?) so I hope that you have already accounted for that possibility and ensured protocols for it. It would also behoove you to generally know the group of licensed professionals who will be overseeing your supervisee while they work virtually, if it is not you.

• I would be sure to also have the contact information of those assigned licensed providers and have regular conversations with them to ensure compliance.

For Clinical Supervisors or Anyone Acting as the Licensed MH Professional:

• Just like in requiring with the previous definition, it would be very helpful to have some sort of contract or designation on file connecting you to the responsibility of watching the Registered Interns you keep an eye on. That way everything is laid out clear.

• Watching via telehealth as opposed to in-office is going to be a different beast- you can’t physically intervene in a case where a Registered Intern’s patient is at risk to themselves or others. Accept this responsibility carefully. Also consider that, in the even of you supervising multiple Registered Interns during the same hour, it is easier to do that when everyone is physically in the same location as you as opposed to a bunch of different places.

There will inevitably be questions regarding “how quick does a licensed MH professional have to respond when a Registered Intern calls for help?” and the answer is “we don’t know at this time” but it would be fair to state it needs to be similar to presenting physically in-person. So calls or appearing via telehealth should be within the first set of rings and/or within 3-5 minutes of being requested, in my opinion. If this cannot be assured, then don’t agree to serve that role.

There is undoubtedly going to be a lot of questions and we will do our best to answer with the information that we have. We know that not all of the questions will likely be able to be answered at present as there is no real precedent for it.