Clients who winter in Florida or Arizona and summer north used to mean six months of care or an annual handoff. If both states participate in PSYPACT and you hold an APIT, the same clinician can carry the whole year without interruption.
Among the genuinely elegant applications of interstate practice, seasonal residents are the clearest. It is a large, predictable population whose care was structurally broken before the compact and is now, in most cases, simply not.
The old problem
A client winters in Florida and summers in Michigan. Before the compact the options were poor: two psychologists and a duplicated therapeutic relationship, six months of treatment and a six-month gap, or a psychologist quietly practicing into a state where they were not licensed.
None of those is good clinical care. The first fragments it, the second interrupts it at a predictable annual interval, and the third is unlawful.
Why the geography is favorable
The major snowbird destinations participate. Florida, Arizona, Texas, Nevada and South Carolina are all participating jurisdictions.
So are most of the northern origin states — Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine.
Which means the classic pairings are covered end to end. A psychologist licensed in Michigan with an APIT® can continue with a client who spends five months in Florida without a second license, a handoff, or a gap.
The exceptions worth knowing
Two northern origin states are outside the compact and they are not small: New York and Massachusetts. A New York client wintering in Florida presents the reverse of the usual problem — the destination is covered, the origin is not. If you are licensed in Florida and the client returns to New York in April, your authority does not follow them home.
California likewise sits outside, which matters for west-coast seasonal movement.
So the intake question is the same as always, and it is about both ends of the migration rather than just the one that feels like the "away" state.
The constraint that applies to you, not the client
Under the APIT® you must be physically located in your declared home state while delivering telepsychology. The client may be anywhere in the compact; you may not.
Worth stating because psychologists are people too, and a psychologist who winters somewhere warm cannot practice under the APIT® from there. If you spend three months a year in another state, either that state needs to be your home state — with a license to match — or you do not see clients under the compact while you are there.
Practical handling
Ask at intake, and be specific. Not "do you travel" but "where will you physically be, and for how long, across the year". Seasonal residents often do not think of themselves as having two states; they have a home and a place they go.
Confirm location when the season turns. A short check-in at the start of a session in October and April costs nothing and is the fact your authority rests on.
Keep local emergency contacts for both locations. A crisis in February is a Florida crisis with Florida procedures and Florida numbers, even though the client has been yours for years.
Remember scope follows the receiving state. You practice under the rules of wherever the client is, including on mandatory reporting and duty-to-warn — and those differ between, say, Michigan and Florida.
Why this is worth building a practice around
Seasonal residents are typically older, frequently Medicare-eligible, often dealing with the things that bring people to therapy later in life — bereavement, chronic illness, adjustment, family transition. They are a population that benefits enormously from continuity and that historically could not get it.
A psychologist with an APIT® can offer something that was genuinely unavailable a few years ago: one clinician, one relationship, no annual interruption. That is worth saying plainly to referrers, because most of them do not yet know it is possible.
One caveat on getting paid: the compact settles authority, not reimbursement. Medicare enrollment follows compact requirements, but commercial contracts remain per-state and per-payer. A client who changes their plan when they change their state is a billing question that needs answering separately.
Common questions
- Can I treat a client who spends winters in another state?
- Yes, if both states participate in PSYPACT and you hold an APIT. Authority follows the client’s physical location, so it must cover both.
- What if my snowbird client winters in a non-participating state?
- You would need a license there, or pause and resume care when they return. The compact does not reach non-participating states at any time of year.
- Do I need to document where my client is each session?
- Yes. Your authority depends on their location, so recording it protects you if a board ever asks which state’s rules governed a session.
- Does the client’s state law change when they travel?
- Yes. Duty to warn, mandatory reporting and practice rules follow the client, so the applicable law changes when they do.
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