What Can a Vet Tech Do in Montana?

Montana's technician statute does not itself say what a licensed technician may do task by task.

It says a technician may administer or dispense drugs and "perform procedures as provided by rule," and separately directs the board to adopt rules on which veterinary practices may be performed under direct, immediate or indirect supervision.

The Montana Board of Veterinary Medicine used that authority to write Admin. R.

Mont. 24.225.602, a genuine task-by-tier list — so despite the delegation structure, a technician weighing a Montana job can still find most tasks named at a specific supervision level, just in the board rule rather than the statute itself.

Montana's task rule sorts every listed technician procedure into direct, immediate or indirect supervision, and Mont.

Code Ann. § 37-18-101(3), (5), (6) — the definitions section of the same chapter — spells out exactly what each tier means.

Direct supervision means the veterinarian is on the premises and readily available to take over care or consult directly.

Immediate supervision is the tightest tier — the veterinarian within direct eyesight and hearing range.

Indirect supervision means the veterinarian is not on the premises but available by direct communication, and in compliance with § 37-18-309.

That section separately makes the supervising veterinarian responsible for determining whether a delegated task is within the technician's training, allowed by rule at the applicable tier, and clearly defined by written orders, protocols, or verbal direction in an emergency.

Montana's sources read do not contain a single clause listing diagnosis, prognosis, prescribing and surgery as reserved to the veterinarian across every context.

The closest the statute comes is narrower: even in a genuine emergency, an employee's permissible activities do not include the performance of surgery or the rendering of diagnoses.

The task rule itself adds one narrow, subject-specific reservation: a technician may float equine teeth under immediate supervision, but all other equine dental operations — including equine extraction — must be performed by a licensed veterinarian.

That leaves the everyday, non-emergency boundary between a technician's authority and a reserved veterinary act resting on the board's task rule itself — a task named at a supervision tier is authorized there, and this page does not extend either carve-out into a general reserved-acts list the sources read do not state.

A Montana LVT may induce general anesthesia and perform a non-emergency endotracheal intubation under direct supervision — the veterinarian on the premises.

Once a patient is under, general sedation, maintenance and recovery moves to indirect supervision, meaning the veterinarian does not need to be on-site for that phase.

Regional anesthesia — paravertebral blocks, epidurals and local blocks — is also listed at direct supervision, alongside induction and intubation.

For a practice scheduling a surgery day, that split means a technician can keep a case going after the veterinarian has stepped away, but cannot start one without the veterinarian present.

The task rule names two kinds of dental work for a technician.

Floating of equine teeth is listed under immediate supervision, and the rule adds that all other equine dental operations must be performed by a licensed veterinarian — reserving equine extraction to the veterinarian by name.

Separately, for dental procedures generally, a technician may remove calculus, soft deposits, plaque and stains, polish teeth, and suture a gingival incision, all under direct supervision.

Small-animal (non-equine) dental extraction as its own named task does not appear in Admin. R.

Mont. 24.225.602 at any supervision tier, for a technician or an assistant, so this page records that gap as not stated rather than inferring a level from the nearby dental items.

Montana names suturing directly: a technician may perform suturing of an existing surgical skin incision under direct supervision, and separately, suturing a gingival incision as one of the listed dental procedures, also at direct supervision.

Both permissions are closing tasks — the rule does not name making the incision itself, which is surgery and, per the emergency-activities clause, is outside what an employee may do even when a veterinarian is unavailable.

For a technician, the working line is closing a cut a veterinarian already made, not performing the surgery that created it.

Montana places euthanasia at indirect supervision — the same tier as radiography, and looser than the direct-supervision tier used for anesthesia induction, intubation and tasks like cystocentesis.

The rule frames it as administering controlled substances for the purposes of euthanasia, following current AVMA guidelines for evaluating euthanasia methods.

Rabies vaccination does not appear as its own named task anywhere in the sources read, for a technician or an assistant, so this page records it as not stated rather than folding it into the general controlled-substance clause.

Montana's exemption statute lets an employee of a licensed veterinarian perform activities the board determines acceptable, under direct, immediate or indirect supervision, and separately lets an employee render emergency care short of surgery or diagnosis.

But the board rule this page relies on for LVT-specific tasks, Admin. R.

Mont. 24.225.602, is written for the licensed technician; no separate board rule enumerating which specific tasks an unlicensed employee may perform was located in the sources read.

For a practice manager, that means Montana's own text does not supply a citable task list for an assistant the way its LVT rule does for a technician — each task cell on this page records that gap rather than assuming the LVT list carries over.

Montana requires a license to practice as a veterinary technician at all, not just to use the title — an individual seeking to practice as a veterinary technician in the state must be licensed by the board.

Separately, a person without an active license may not state or imply they are a "licensed veterinary technician" or use the initials "LVT." Both the practice mandate and the title bar sit in the same section, enacted in 2021, so an unlicensed assistant in Montana cannot use the LVT title or claim the licensed role, even where the day-to-day tasks they perform overlap with a technician's.

Admin. R.

Mont. 24.225.602, the rule this page's task table rests on, took effect September 10, 2022.

The license requirement is newer still: § 37-18-701 was enacted in 2021 (Ch. 392, Laws of 2021), meaning Montana's mandatory LVT license and its task-by-tier rule are both products of the same early-2020s legislative and rulemaking push. § 37-18-104 was sourced as of its 2025-01-01 current version; a prior 2017-01-01 version exists, but the sources read for this page did not itemize what changed between them.