FIRST, BE INFORMED:

Please visit the AAPA News Center for the most comprehensive list of materials surrounding the issue.

• NCCPA's proposal
• AAPA's actions to advocate for evidence-based methods to assess competency
• AAPA -hosted discussion that have already take place
• Resources to help PAs and COs develop comments and responses to the proposal
• The potential risks to PAs and the potential impacts on both healthcare access and costs

 

THEN, TAKE ACTION!

Visit the MAPA NCCPA Re-Certification Exam Proposal Forum to provide your comments to the MAPA leadership.  

MAPA's House of Delegate (HOD) members to AAPA will be discussing this topic at the National Conference in San Antonio in May and really need your input so that they can best represent the opinion of the membership. Please participate in this discussion and let your voice be heard!

I think we should stick with the current model to keep our profession flexible and to prevent the limitations that a specialized exam would place on our profession. The new proposal will require additional costs and time, both of which will take away from patient care and our personal lives.

Hello. This is what I posted at the end of my survey.

 

As you are probably aware at this point, there is alot of push back about the proposed changes which has led to PA's questioning the utility for all this testing at this point in our profession's maturity.  I generally support this line of thinking, including:

1. This survey appears biased towards the proposed changes, and certainly towards repeat testing and increased CME requirements in general, rather than other options for solving the generalist vs specialist complications of our profession. 
2.  Rather than more testing and expensive, time consuming CME, it would be more efficient and more in line with other professional medical provider (NPs, MDs) requirements, to have an initial PANCE, followed by regular self- selected CME at current levels. This would allow folks to focus their time on their area of practice rather then needing to create  additional tests for each speciality.
3.    I have read that the NCCPA's initial relevance was to help state PA orgs get legislative support for our legal existence.  This was admirable! The profession and medicolegal environment has changed and NCCPA needs to change with it.  I think many of us are suspicious that the requirement adjustments are at least partly motivated by monetary and self-relevancy issues on the part of NCCPA now that legislatively the initial impetus for NCCPA's creation has largely been acheived. 
4. Is NCCPA's budget, including test making and CAQ creation investment posted on your website?  If so, where can I find it? If not, it should be.    
5.  I found the federation of state med boards MOL framework and guiding principles very helpful and I think both the current and proposed systems over step the bounds set by these documents.
http://www.fsmb.org/Media/Default/PDF/FSMB/Foundation/mol-guiding-principles.pdf
http://www.fsmb.org/Media/Default/PDF/FSMB/Foundation/mol-framework.pdf
6.  I will be working with my state assoc and AAPA to address these issues.

I am opposed to this new exam proposal. Frankly, I am opposed to the new 10 year cycle recertification process. The NCCPA survey is biased. I see no evidence that these two new processes are going to validate us as practitioners or in some way enhance our abilities. This notion that we need to diversify for specialty certification only complicates the recertification process. Ultimately we need to be versed in core medical knowledge no matter where we practice. I feel the profession is somehow trying to validate our place in medicine by complicating the certification process. The Self Assessment and Performance Improvement requirements are more busy work. If this is a subtle move to eventually try claim we can be independent practitioners as a way to appear equal to the Nurse Practitioners, I am opposed to this as well. We should have a clear concise recertification process that is universal and applicable to core medical knowledge that is also cost effective.

I vehemently oppose the proposal for new re-certification process and exam.  According to NCCPA the "Specialty-related knowledge would assess knowledge needed to practice  safely and effectively in that specialty area. These are exams that would assess what PAs actually do in practice."  I am in orthopedics but more specifically, I am in a tertiary sub-specialty position where I have a 100% shoulder and elbow practice.  Thus, even in the "specialty exam" of orthopedics, it would be irrelevant to me as it would ask about general orthopedics and therefore, cannot assess my knowledge to "safely and effectively" practice. 

I prefer the current model as it tests me on my core medical knowledge.  I need that to safely discuss meds and medical history during new patient consultations and rounding.  I need to stay abreast of general medical issues and pharmacology as it relates to the surgical patient.  Keeping the current model assures I attend relevant CME courses and study appropriately to treat my patient as a whole.  Changing the model would require me to study and attend CME on spine, hand, knee, hip, foot and ankle so I can take the "specialty exam" but would be quite useless in my actual medical practice.

I am opposed to the new changes. I prefer the current method of certification. I fear the new method's specialization will be destructive to a PA's current ability to switch specialties. The survey done by the AAPA seemed biased towards switching to the new model and that was disappointing to see.

I have been in the field for 36 years, taken 31 students, 2 Clinical Professor titles and I love what I do. I am in a small clinic now which cannot take students. As it seems you are making us jump through hoops to keep practicing when the country is screaming for more Primary Care Providers I am now getting calls and e-mails from classmates that are retiring rather than go through the past or proposed recertification again. I find this so sad and it has me looking twice as to whether I want to stay in the field.
KK

Thanks, Leslie, Becky, and others for bringing this to our attention. I'll also post what I said at the end of the survey:

"
I object to the new model on the grounds that it, much like the CAQ, is a step in the direction of making it more difficult to diversify areas of specialty in the PA profession and will make it easier to divide this going forward. It feels to me like every 3-4 years (and I've only been practicing 4 years), there is a new change in the proposed CME/recert process that makes recertification more confusing. AAPA just spent 2 years sending reps out to explain the new recertification process, and now we're going to change it again?

"

Some additional thoughts: Is there some financial gain from doing this, whether it's from sales of suggested CME or testing fees? Standardized tests and recertifications are bleeding my CME dry as it is and often feel unnecessary. This feels like another hostile takeover of our certification, as if we're being told the changes are being made and how would we like them served up?

I also agree with C. Jones that this feels like a biased survey in favor of proposed changes.

-Collin Arnett

As we are educated in the medical model, why not follow the physician model for recertification? (like ABIM) PAs practice evidence-based medicine, why not have an evidence-based CME/recert model? I am looking forward to the forum to learn how the new model fits into current practice paradigms.