2002: |
FSMB Board of Directors approves a motion to include the issue of physicians'
continued competence in its FY 2004 action plan.
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September 2003: |
FSMB Special Committee on Maintenance of Licensure convened. Committee is
charged, in part, with 1) developing a position statement regarding the responsibility of state medical boards in ensuring physician competence over the course of his/her career and 2) developing strategies for state medical boards to use in implementing programs to ensure physicians maintain an appropriate level of competence to practice medicine safely throughout their professional careers.
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February 2004: |
The Board of Directors endorses a recommendation by the Special Committee on Maintenance of Licensure that FSMB adopt policy stating that medical boards are responsible to the public for assuring the continued competence of physicians at the time of license renewal.
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April 2004: |
Board of Directors Report 04-1: Report on Special Committee on Maintenance of
Licensure sent to House of Delegates for approval. The following policy statement is
adopted by the House of Delegates as FSMB policy:
"State medical boards have a responsibility to the public to ensure the ongoing
competence of physicians seeking relicensure."
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February 2005: |
Special Committee on Maintenance of Licensure Interim Report sent to Board of
Directors for approval. The report outlines the conceptual challenges associated with
implementing maintenance of licensure requirements and discusses issues
considered by the committee to date.
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May 2005: |
Board of Directors report on Efforts to Address the Continued Competence of
Licensed Physicians sent to the House of Delegates for information. The report
includes the Special Committee on Maintenance of Licensure Interim Report as an
attachment.
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July 2005: |
The Board of Directors refers Resolution 05-3, Physician and Physician Assistant
Reentry to Practice, to the Special Committee. Specifically, the Board asks the
committee to draft guidelines for reentry to practice that may be broadly applied to all health professions regulated by state medical boards.
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2007: |
Special Committee completes work on final report with recommendations regarding
MOL. Draft model guidelines for reentry to practice are also included.
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October 2007: |
Special Committee completes initial draft of final report and submits to Board of Directors. The Board approves distributing the draft report to member boards and
other interested stakeholders for comment.
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February 2008: |
Special Committee submits final report, Special Committee on Maintenance of
Licensure Draft Report on Maintenance of Licensure, to Board of Directors for
consideration. The report includes recommendations for MOL and reentry to practice. The Board of Directors separates the recommendations regarding maintenance of licensure and reentry to practice into independent documents, with the former to be forwarded immediately to the House of Delegates and the latter to be considered by the Board of Directors later in the year. Based on questions and issues raised by state medical boards and other stakeholders concerning the committee's recommendations, the Board of Directors defers acting on the report of the Special Committee on Maintenance of Licensure and, instead, recommends to the House of Delegates that the FSMB pursue further information-gathering activities to answer questions about the implications of implementing MOL policies.
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May 2008: |
Board of Directors Report 08-3: Assuring the Ongoing Competence of Licensed
Physicians, which includes the Special Committee on Maintenance of Licensure Draft Report on Maintenance of Licensure as an attachment, forwarded to House of
Delegates. The report recommends 1) that the House of Delegates adopt a set of
guiding principles that are based upon but broader than those developed by the
Special Committee to guide its work and 2) that the House of Delegates approve a
motion directing FSMB to pursue information-gathering activities.
The House of Delegates 1) endorses the Board of Directors' recommendation that
prior to taking any action on the report of the Special Committee on Maintenance of
Licensure, FSMB engage in further evaluation to better understand how
implementation of the proposed maintenance of licensure requirements will impact
state medical boards and other stakeholder groups and report back to the House of
Delegates in 2009 and 2) adopts the following guiding principles as FSMB policy:
• MOL should support physicians' commitment to lifelong learning and facilitate
improvement in physician practice.
• MOL systems should be administratively feasible and should be developed in
collaboration with other stakeholders. The authority for establishing MOL
requirements should remain within the purview of state medical boards.
• MOL should not be overly burdensome for the profession and should not hinder
physician mobility.
• The infrastructure to support physician compliance with MOL requirements must
be flexible and offer a choice of options for meeting requirements.
• MOL processes should balance transparency with privacy protections.
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October 2008: |
A taskforce comprised of members and staff of 13 state medical boards is convened
to assist in analyzing the impact of implementing MOL requirements on state medical boards and other stakeholders. Discussions from the meeting form the basis of a draft impact analysis report to be submitted to the Board of Directors.
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January 2009: |
The draft report, An Analysis of the Impact of Implementation of Maintenance of
Licensure Requirements, based on the work of the taskforce convened in October
2008 is disseminated to FSMB's member state medical boards for comment.
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February 2009: |
The FSMB Board of Directors receives the draft report, An Analysis of the Impact of
Implementation of Maintenance of Licensure Requirements. The Board approves a
motion that the Board of Directors submit an interim report to the House of Delegates recommending that additional study on matters related to maintenance of licensure be conducted in order to assure member boards have as much comprehensive and useful guidance as possible.
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May 2009: |
Board of Directors Report 09-2: Assuring the Ongoing Competence of Licensed
Physicians submitted to House of Delegates. The report includes the impact analysis
report, as well as a summary of feedback received on the report. The Board of
Directors recommends and the House of Delegates adopts the following:
The FSMB pursue the following scope of work and report back to the House of
Delegates at the FY2010 annual business meeting:
1. Conduct, collect and disseminate research on and give additional consideration
to the evidence for the need for initiating an MOL program and the effects of such
a program on patient care and physician practice.
2. Conduct further analysis of outstanding issues which surfaced as a result of the
MOL impact analysis report and state medical board and other stakeholders
feedback to this report;
3. In collaboration with appropriate stakeholders, develop recommendations for how
MOL, maintenance of certification, and other continuous improvement activities
could be aligned to support state medical boards in achieving a regulatory
system that assures the public of a physician's competence while minimizing
duplication and burden on the physician community;
4. In collaboration with appropriate stakeholders, support/fund one or more pilot
projects centering on issues relevant to MOL discussions;
5. Actively engage state medical boards, the public, physicians and other
stakeholders in discussions about MOL and solicit their input in the evolution and
development of related policy recommendations.
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July 2009: |
Members of the MOL Impact Taskforce reconvene to continue analysis of additional
issues regarding the impact of the Special Committee's draft MOL policy on state
medical boards. Specific issues of focus are:
• Strategies to mitigate possible unintended consequences that may result from
implementing MOL policies
• Options for dealing with licensed physicians who are pursuing careers in nonclinical settings (e.g., administration), such as different types of licenses
• How states would address physicians who choose not to or are unable to comply
with MOL requirements
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August 2009: |
FSMB convenes an Advisory Group on Continued Competence of Licensed
Physicians to review the FSMB's current and previous work on MOL. Upon
completion of its review, the group will issue an opinion to the FSMB Board of
Directors concerning the MOL initiative and more specifically, whether the framework proposed in the report of the Special Committee on Maintenance of Licensure for use by state medical boards in assuring the continued competence of licensed physicians is feasible, reasonable, consistent with the guiding principles adopted by FSMB's House of Delegates in May 2008 and suitable for use by state medical boards in assuring the continued competence of licensed physicians.
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December 2009: |
Draft report of the Advisory Group on Continued Competence of Licensed Physicians is distributed to FSMB member board and external stakeholders for comment.
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January 2010: |
FSMB convenes an MOL Implementation Group to 1) create a template proposal available to assist state medical boards in the implementation of an MOL program within and across their jurisdictions and 2) identify potential challenges to implementation of MOL programs and propose possible solutions to overcome these challenges.
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