So I had mentioned a while back that we were told that Army leadership would start approving CME so long as a request was submitted ahead of time. I had also mentioned that I would post my experience with this. Here it is:
I submitted a request for a CME course that included sufficient credit hours for an entire year based upon my academy and licensing. The total cost to include travel, lodging, per diem, milage, taxis, and the course was $6,000 (a very liberal estimate) and it included a course in ultrasound certification, which would have almost certainly increased our RVU production as we currently send the applicable patients to the network.
I haven't been to a CME course in 2 1/2 years. I've paid for all of my CME out-of-pocket during that time. The nearest city where my academy has hosted a conference during my time at this duty station was 12 hours away (driving), so a closer course (less expensive) was not an option. All of my CME is online, which isn't terrible, but as most of you know is not the same as a conference.
I submitted the request in June 2014. I e-mailed to check up on it every few months, and always recieved the same reply: "It is still being processed."
As the timing drew nearer, I sent more e-mails, and I always recieved the same response. When it came down to only a few weeks remaining, I started showing my face in the appropriate offices. Finally, less than two weeks prior to the course, I recieved a reply.
The paperwork had never been recieved. That is, of course, very different from what I had been told for the last 6 months. So I submitted it again, without much hope of approval.
I received another reply: Please resubmit. There are some formatting errors which would prevent this request from being approved. No specifics.
I scanned the document fully. I am not an editor. I found one extra space where it (might?) not have belonged, but otherwise I could not find any significant mistakes. I resubmitted again.
I received another reply: denied.
So there's our newly revamped CME process for you. Certainly, had it been submitted earlier I might have had a chance to edit it. Maybe that would have made a difference. I don't personally believe that it would have. But that isn't really the point, is it?
I have yet to meet a physician in my specialty working for a private practice, group practice, or hospital who doesn' t a: have money set aside for CME and b: make more than I do in the first place. Most of them are aware that at one point the Army paid for CME, but they are typically shocked and apalled when I explain to them that we get nothing for CME currently. CME is basic support for your medical staff. Yes, it is their responsability, but if they don't have it they cannot practice. It is, therefore, in your best interest to ensure that they have access to CME. This is not to mention the fact that it should be important for large medical institutions to have well trained, well educated staff, be it Kaiser, Mayo, or the US Army. No one wants to come for medical care at an institution where the physicians are scraping together educational materials just to keep up to date.
In typical Army fashion, they have made it a policy to pretend that they care about the issue when in fact it is just a facade or an illusion of interest. The fact that they would require their medical staff to generate a request report (which isn't short, if you haven't done one - you literally have to research the cost down to the nearest dollar) is one thing - doable but time consuming. The fact that they would deny it due to a minor formatting error is tragically insane in my opinion. I see that as nothing more than an excuse to deny CME while reflecting blame. They want to make it easier to just pay for your own CME.
But that's just my take. maybe someone else has a different experience.
caveman
