NCMS President Visits NC Medical Board

This week, NCMS President Robert W. Monteiro, MD, attended the bi-monthly meeting of the North Carolina Medical Board (NCMB). Dr. Monteiro met with the Board’s new officers and members, toured the building and sat in on a number of meetings to gain a better understanding of Medical Board processes.

“The Medical Board plays an important role in the delivery of health care in North Carolina. Strong, pro-active oversight is essential to quality health care and vital for patient safety. I found the Board to be very thorough and fair while observing their meetings,” Dr. Monteiro said.

Below is an update of the Board’s actions:

• Position Statement on Self-Treatment and the Treatment of Family Members:  The Board reviews each of its position statements every four years; the statement on Self-Treatment has been up for discussion since last year.  While many drafts have been circulated in recent months, the Board’s Policy Committee finally gave approval to a set of revisions on Wednesday. This draft can be viewed here. The Board will vote on the proposed revision at a future meeting, to allow ample time for stakeholder feedback.
•  Continuing Medical Education: On Friday the Board gave approval to draft rules regarding the Continuing Medical Education requirements for licensees. The draft rules propose to reduce the number of CME hours required from 150 every three years to 60.  This change will bring the NC Medical Board standards more in line with other states by eliminating Category II, or physician-initiated, CME altogether. The NCMS successfully advocated against proposed language which would have required the Board to issue a $500 presumptive fine to any licensee who fails to comply with CME requirements.  This language was removed from the proposal and the Board will continue to address licensees that fail to comply with CME requirements as they do today – on an individualized basis, which may include administrative fines or disciplinary action depending on the circumstances of the case.

  The new CME rules (that can be viewed here) have been approved by the Medical Board but have yet to be filed with the Rules Review Commission. The change to the required number of CME hours will not take effect until after a public hearing is held and the rules are approved by the Rules Review Commission later this year.