In June 2016, the SDPA was represented by President Jennifer Conner, Immediate Past President Matthew Brunner, and Past President Vicki Roberts at a meeting between specialty organization leaders and the NCCPA to discuss the recent proposed changes to our recertification process. The meeting included collaborative dialogue regarding the concerns with the proposal and potential solutions for consideration by the NCCPA. There was unanimous concern from all specialty organization representatives regarding the potential loss of the PA-C generalist credential, requirements by employers and payers for specialty certification, increased risk of malpractice claims for PAs without specialty certification, and additional cost and time to fulfill the requirements for recertification within the proposed new model. The NCCPA was receptive to our concerns and ideas for potential solutions. A number of potential alternative models for recertification were discussed and will be presented to the NCCPA board for further consideration. It is also important to note that any further changes to the recertification process will take several years to implement, which was also a major concern of SDPA and other specialty leaders given the recent changes in the model since 2014.
On August 11, 2016 the NCCPA announced that Self-Assessment (SA) and Performance Improvement (PI) CME will no longer be a requirement for those in the 10-year recertification cycle, though they will remain viable options for CME. The SDPA Conference CME and Distance CME team have worked hard to develop excellent SA and PI CME opportunities and we will still offer them as long as our members find value in that benefit. The SDPA’s two PI-CME modules will launch this fall as planned. The NCCPA continues to recognize the value of these very interactive types of CME and will weight PI and SA CME more heavily, which makes the value per hour of CME even better for these options. This translates to double credits for the first 20 PI-CME hours and 1.5 credits for every hour SA CME earned.