As the new year gets underway, updated resources from the NCMS and the American Medical Association (AMA) offer physicians low stress opportunities to simultaneously earn continuing medical education (CME) credit and learn how trends in health care could affect their patients and their practices.

The NCMS has partnered with InReach Continuing Education Solutions to provide members a robust, on demand CME portal. By launching this new CME source, the NCMS is able to deliver accredited content online to members to access at their convenience via webcasts, webinars, and podcasts from a comprehensive online CME catalog located on our website.

Topics range from business practices to clinical training, in areas as diverse as billing, physician health, patient safety, and disease management. Review the online CME catalog and access a CME resource today.  

From the AMA, the new 2013-2014 edition of the Health Care Trends report research on key health care developments and identifies ways these changes may impact patients and physicians. By reading any of the first four chapters, now published through the AMA Online Learning Center, physicians can earn AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™; one credit is offered for each chapter at no charge. The chapters include:

1. Health economics, which looks at such aspects of health economics as national health care spending and growth, drug shortages caused by financial factors, the health insurance market and access to care.

2. Public health infrastructure and health inequities, which examines data about the public health workforce, infectious disease, injury, obesity and social determinants of health.

3. Health care resources and physician payment, which captures research about physician professional satisfaction, workforce diversity, emerging models of care and payment, employed physician compensation and the impact of federal regulation on physician payment.

4. Science and technology in medicine, which tracks trends in data analytics, medical research funding, health information technology and new medical advances.

Subsequent chapters will be released every few months that will report on current trends in global health care, health status of the U.S. population, medical practice and quality, and medical education. To access, visit the report online.

Visit the NCMS website for more information on how to access and utilize your NCMS member benefits.