What Can a Vet Tech Do in Illinois?

Illinois's CVT-functions rule opens with a general supervision principle, then lists named tasks across three subsections — (d) at the tightest, immediate-only tier; (e) at direct-or-immediate; (f) at indirect-direct-or-immediate — and closes with subsection (g): tasks not listed in subsections (d) and (e) may still be delegated to a CVT, at a level the supervising veterinarian sets based on skill, experience and competency.

The rule's own catch-all text names only (d) and (e) as the tasks it excludes, so a technician or practice manager should read (g) exactly as written rather than assume it excludes subsection (f) as well.

Cast application sits alone at the tightest tier, immediate supervision.

Anesthesia induction, intubation, skin closure and a dozen other tasks sit at direct-or-immediate.

IV catheter placement, radiographs, cystocentesis, euthanasia and the rest of subsection (f) sit at the loosest tier, indirect, direct or immediate. 225 ILCS 115/3 defines each term: direct supervision means the veterinarian is readily available on the premises where the animal is being treated; immediate supervision means the veterinarian is in the immediate area, within audible and visual range of the patient and the person treating it; indirect supervision means the veterinarian need not be on the premises but has given written or oral instructions and is available by telephone or other communication.

Subsection (b) reserves the familiar core: no CVT may diagnose, give a prognosis, prescribe, or perform any kind of surgery.

Subsection (c) goes further, naming six specific tasks a CVT is flatly barred from performing regardless of supervision level — dental extractions, gingival resection, clamping calves' tails, floating teeth, castrating animals, and setting bones.

Cast application is the one exception carved back out: it is allowed under immediate supervision, but the rule is explicit that this does not extend to setting the bone itself.

Induction, endotracheal intubation, maintenance and monitoring of vital signs are listed together under subsection (e), so a CVT may perform each of them under direct or immediate supervision.

Illinois draws no separate, looser tier for monitoring a patient once anesthesia is already underway — all four anesthesia-related tasks share the same supervision requirement.

Because the rule governs only certified technicians, it says nothing about whether an uncertified assistant may take part in any of them.

Dental extractions and gingival resection both sit on the flat prohibited-tasks list in subsection (c), not on a supervision-tiered list.

There is no carve-out here for a simple, single-root extraction — regardless of who is present or how routine the extraction is, the text draws no line based on complexity, and the task is barred outright.

Dental prophylaxis — cleaning, not extraction — is a separate, permitted item at direct-or-immediate supervision.

The rule names "skin closure" as a permitted task at direct-or-immediate supervision, and separately allows removal of sutures, drains or staples at the looser indirect-direct-or-immediate tier.

It does not use the word "suturing" more broadly, and surgery itself is reserved to the veterinarian under subsection (b).

This page reads "skin closure" as the rule's own term for suture placement and states only that; it does not extend the permission to any broader surgical suturing the text does not name.

"Humane euthanasia of animals" is listed at the loosest supervision tier, indirect, direct or immediate.

Rabies is handled differently: the rule names "decapitation for rabies tests submission" at direct-or-immediate and "administer nonrabies vaccines" at indirect-direct-or-immediate, but at no point names administration of a rabies vaccine itself.

That gap is conspicuous rather than incidental, and this page does not read it either as a permission or as a prohibition — a technician or practice manager needs to raise rabies-vaccine administration with the board directly rather than infer an answer from the two adjacent, differently-worded items the rule does list.

Section 1505.60 is titled and written for certified veterinary technicians only; nothing in it names a parallel scope for uncertified staff.

The exemption statute, 225 ILCS 115/4(13), excuses an employee performing "permitted duties" from needing a veterinary license, but that clause itself rules out four things — diagnosis, prognosis, prescribing and surgery — and requires the veterinarian's direction and supervision.

It still does not say which specific tasks an uncertified employee's "permitted duties" otherwise include.

For a practice manager, that means Illinois's rule answers what a CVT may do in detail, rules those four things out for an uncertified assistant, and leaves everything else about what an assistant may do genuinely unstated.

225 ILCS 115/3 defines "certified veterinary technician" or "veterinary technician" as a person who has graduated from an AVMA-accredited veterinary technician program and passed the Veterinary Technician National Examination, and the same sentence reserves the titles "certified veterinary technician," "veterinary technician," "vet tech" and "technician," plus the initials "CVT" and "VT," to persons the Department has certified.

Section 8.1 repeats that restriction and adds a penalty: using any of those titles without certification is a Class A misdemeanor.

For an Illinois job posting or business card, that means the informal shorthand "vet tech" is legally significant, not only the credentialed abbreviation "CVT."

225 ILCS 115/4.5, effective January 1, 2024, separately lets a veterinarian delegate telemedicine services to a CVT acting under direct or indirect supervision — a supervision context distinct from the in-person task list in § 1505.60.

The definitions section, 225 ILCS 115/3, carries an effective date of January 1, 2026 in the current codification, indicating a recent amendment, but the substance of that specific change was not captured in the sources read for this page.