AOE Compliance Connection – March 2019 Newsletter

Welcome to the March ’19 edition of AOE Compliance Connection, AOE’s monthly newsletter. Have you wondered if Joint Accreditation is a good fit for your organization? This month, we’re sharing information about Joint Accreditation, along with tips and reminders about ACCME and ANCC Annual Reporting. You’ll find our regular board bulletin updates and upcoming events, as well.

We are here to serve you and your CME/CE team. Visit aoeconsulting.com for weekly compliance tips, CME/CE news, and information about the AOE team. Your success is our priority!

While many in the CME/CE enterprise are now familiar with Joint Accreditation for Interprofessional Continuing Education, many inquiries remain. Further, for organizations considering Joint Accreditation, it is important to consider if this accreditation fits the organizational mission, whether the necessary infrastructure is in place and if it makes sense, financially.

Joint Accreditation allows organizations to be simultaneously accredited to provide continuing education credits for the following health professionals through a single, unified application process and set of accreditation standards.

• Physicians
• Nurses
• Pharmacists
• Physician Assistants
• Optometrists
• Psychologists
• Social Workers

While providers that hold Joint Accreditation may offer activities accredited for a single type of continuing education credit such as continuing nursing education (CNE) credit, a percentage the activities developed must be interprofessional continuing education (IPCE). “IPCE is when members from two or more professions learn with, from and about each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes.”

IPCE is structurally different than education that simply targets a multidisciplinary target audience. IPCE is based on professional practice gap(s) and corresponding educational need(s) of the healthcare team. In other words, just because an educational activity is appropriate for different healthcare professionals does not mean that it is an IPCE activity. IPCE activities are rooted in gap(s) and need(s) of the healthcare team and are planned by and for the healthcare team.

In order to be eligible to apply for Joint Accreditation, an organization must meet the following conditions:

• An organization must have the structure and processes in place to plan and present educational activities that are designed by and for the healthcare team for at least 18 months prior to application for Joint Accreditation.
• At least 25% of all educational activities delivered by the organization in the past 18 months must be categorized as IPCE. An organization must have at least nine IPCE activities in order to be considered for Joint Accreditation.
• An organization must demonstrate compliance with the Joint Accreditation criteria and, if currently accredited, any associated accreditation policies required by the ACCME, ACPE or ANCC.

If your organization is considering Joint Accreditation, here are some questions to ask internally:

• Does your organization currently hold more than one accreditation (e.g. ACCME, ANCC, ACPE or other)?
• Is your organization currently offering IPCE? If yes, how many IPCE activities, on average, are you offering each year?
• If your organization is not currently offering IPCE, would it like to begin offering IPCE? Does IPCE align with your organization’s vision and mission?
• Which health professions does your program of continuing education currently target?
• What changes in policies and procedures, if any, would be required in order to fulfill the Joint Accreditation criteria?
• Does pursing Joint Accreditation make sense financially for your organization?
• In order for your organization to fulfill the eligibility requirements, what is an appropriate timeline?

If your organization is considering Joint Accreditation, take time to consider if the accreditation would help your organization better fulfill its mission and what would be required to fulfill the eligibility requirements. AOE would be happy to help you navigate this decision; email us at inquire@aoeconsulting.com to start the conversation!

On March 6, the ACCME hosted a webinar geared toward providers interested in offering CME that counts for Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) of the Quality Payment Program (QPP). A total of 480 registrants attended the webinar which was facilitated by Graham McMahon, President and CEO of ACCME, as well as three representatives from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

Topics covered included the evolution of CME for MIPS, an overview of QPP, MIPS eligibility, reporting options for individual learners, and FAQ opportunities that focused on options for CME providers who want to support learners through QPP and MIPS.

Providers were encouraged to implement improvement activities that address quality or safety gaps, feature measurable aims for improvement, and include interventions intended to result in improvement; then providers must collect data assessing the impact of the intervention and define what meaningful clinician participation would be to learners.

An updated MIPS FAQ site will be added to the ACCME’s website soon, and attendees of the ACCME 2019 Meeting can expect a MIPS focus in multiple sessions. Until then, providers can look to this webpage for more detailed information on MIPS activities.

Providers of CPE can use the ACPE Provider Web Tool (PWT) for many functions, including administrative ones such as ensuring that the appropriate individuals are registered as points of contact for their organization.

According to the CPE Policies and Procedures Manual, ACPE requires that one individual is listed as Continuing Education Administrator (CEA) and a different individual is listed as Supervisor. Unique contact information is required for each individual, as the CEA serves as the ACPE’s First Point of Contact and the Supervisor as the Second Point of Contact.

The second individual does not necessarily have to be a Supervisor, but simply a second contact to ensure clear communication from the ACPE to each provider. Providers often leave this contact information blank, prompting an inquiry from the ACPE.

Found in Section V of the Policies and Procedures, Policy 1b details the way providers should handle administrative changes of any kind, including transfer of authority within their organization. Read more about the detailed steps here.