Similar to other healthcare professions, professional regulation of Licensed Dietitian Nutritionists aims to safeguard the public by identifying qualified practitioners and enabling recourse for incompetent care or harmful advice. Licensure laws guide the public to qualified providers, protecting against negligence and the dissemination of inaccurate nutrition recommendations that can harm health and lead to unnecessary expenses.
While RDNs practice in a variety of settings, licensure is particularly important in the context of the practice of medical nutrition therapy (MNT), which is nutrition care aimed at treating a disease state or medical condition. MNT is a specialized form of evidence-based nutrition care and differs from general nutrition or health education.
MNT provides RDNs with the ability to manage complex medical conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, kidney disease, malnutrition, and gastrointestinal (GI) disorders. RDNs are highly qualified to provide health-promoting nutrition recommendations for individuals receiving nutrition support through feeding tubes or IVs, within the setting of complicated surgeries, and while considering the various drugs or treatments patients are on.
Without licensure, anyone, qualified or not, may provide dietetic services. Licensure ensures only qualified nutrition practitioners are authorized to treat individuals with medical conditions, creating accountability and safeguarding the public by regulating all providers of medical nutrition therapy services, not just RDNs.
Licensure allows RDNs to practice at their level of competence. Without licensure, RDNs have no legal authority to practice medical nutrition therapy, the service for which they are trained and most qualified to provide.
It is also important to note that dietetics licensure supports employment opportunities and access to nutrition care in Iowa:
- Generally, payers, such as insurance companies, look to licensure to identify who is a qualified provider of medical nutrition therapy and to assess a practitioner's eligibility for reimbursement. Requiring licensure of qualified dietetics practitioners expands access to nutrition care and income opportunities for RDNs.
- The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in collaboration with the Council of State Governments is working to streamline the licensure of RDNs by introducing an interstate compact. States’ participation in the Dietitian Licensure Compact is contingent upon states licensing and regulating the practice of dietetics. If a state does not license RDNs, that state will not be able to seek the Compact benefits such as expanded nutrition care access for Iowa citizens, increased income opportunities for RDNs, and support for active duty military and their spouses.
- Maintaining licensure would increase opportunities for RDNs to participate in the compact, enticing more RDNs to live in Iowa and contribute to the Iowa economy. This is especially helpful to RDNs who live on/near the borders of our state. States without licensure, such as Michigan, are increasingly seeing patients/clients receive MNT outside of their state.
