Recently, the ACCME's Board of Directors decided to defer adoption of changes to the Standards for Commercial Support to prohibit the use of commercial interest logos in the acknowledgment of commercial support. The CME Coalition applauds the Board’s decision to defer these changes, and continues to maintain that the appropriate use of corporate logos provides transparency and disclosure to learners on educational grants obtained from commercial interest in support of an educational activity.
The CME Coalition's voluntary industry guidelines for responsible logo use are intended to offer a best practices code of conduct for the responsible use of logos at accredited CME events. A list of organizations that have pledged to adopt these voluntary guidelines is available here.
Continuing medical education (CME) refers to a range of educational programs provided by trained professionals that helps health care providers to maintain their competence and to learn about new technologies, procedures and developing areas of their field. Content for these programs is developed, reviewed, and delivered by faculty who are experts in their individual clinical areas. Similar to the process used in academic journals, any potentially conflicting financial relationships for faculty members must be disclosed and addressed appropriately. The CME Coalition is a collection of health care providers, companies, institutions and academics committed to the pursuit of sensible policies designed to promote responsible CME.
Friday, January 31, 2014 - Attached below is a PDF of the CME Coalition's written comments to the ACCME in response to the Call for Comment related to the use of corporate logos.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013 - In July, the CME Coalition published a comprehensive Sunshine Act Compliance Guidebook to provide commercial supporters, CME providers, and CME event participants with clear rules for ensuring compliance with the Sunshine Act.
Today, the Coalition published a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) supplement to our Compliance Guide, which includes important answers and citations to regulation intended to answer a number of questions, including:
how to handle attendee meals;
treatment of various accrediting bodies/rules; and
Thursday, July 25, 2013 - Today, the CME Coalition published a comprehensive Sunshine Act Compliance Guidebook to provide commercial supporters, CME providers, and CME event participants with clear rules for ensuring compliance with the Sunshine Act. This Guide is based upon a thorough review of the most recent CMS guidance, regarding the requirements for determining which payments may be exempt from the mandated Sunshine reporting rules, and when others must be reported. Further, this summary is based on authorities existing as of the date of this document, and any recommendations herein are subject to further guidance from CMS. The guidebook is available by way of the link provided above.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013 - Today, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) pubished new guidance in the form of a frequently asked questions document, which provides clarity to several issues in the Sunshine Act raised by the CME Coalition in recent meetings with the agency. They were able to clarify some important questions, as detailed below.
Are payments for travel, lodging and meals to speakers and faculty of accredited or certified CME events that meet all three conditions established in the final rule included in the total compensations that are exempt from reporting?
Friday, June 21, 2013 - Today, the CME Coalition's Senior Advisor sent a letter to Commercial Supporter Compliance Officers outlining the Coalition's recommendations for how to implement a Sunshine-Exempt CME programs. Although a certain degree of uncertainty lingers regarding the degree to which the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is going to require the reporting of certain transfers of value, the Coalition strongly believes that there is ample guidance in the Final Rule to move forward with designing CME programs that are exempted from the Act's reporting requirements.
Friday, June 21, 2013 - While the Final Rule for the Physician Payment Sunshine Act clarified that there are specific exemptions to the law's reporting requirements for the dissemination of continuing medical education (CME), there were many questions left for commercial supporters of CME. The slides from the CME Coalition's recent webinar explain how CME providers must follow a defined set of regulations to eliminate any “conflict of interest,” while noting that CMS’ intent is to encourage more CME support. The presentation concludes that commercial supporters of CME should have enough comfort in the “CME Exemption” to move forward without fear of penalty
