Issue 7 - May 2004

A seal of approval PACE eases CE process
by RichaRD COLE, DC

If you sign up for a continuing education class, are you sure that your state chiropractic licensing board will accept it for license renewal? When it comes time for you to submit documentation to your licensing board, do you find yourself trying to find all of those miscellaneous credit approvals? Or, have you ever been involved in a compliance audit and had to “cough up” proof of attending CE programs?

These problems will be solved in the near future, when PACE — the Providers of Approved Continuing Education — becomes fully implemented.

Stamp of approval
PACE is a program that puts a “seal of approval” on continuing education providers. Fundamentally, PACE is a way to offer cost-effective, centralized approval as well as uniform standards to providers who demonstrate their willingness and capability to comply with PACE requirements. The result is this: When you — the doctor taking a course — see the PACE seal, you know the program is not only approved for relicensure credit, but it also has achieved a quality standard.

It has taken the Federation of Chiropractic Licensing Boards six years to develop and launch this program. The idea for PACE came up as the result of chiropractic regulatory boards crying for help. They were being deluged by applications for continuing education approval for relicensure credit. Some of these boards were receiving stacks of applications from continuing education providers each week — and they could not handle the workload, especially in light of diminishing resources and increasing demand for other regulatory services.

Board processing problems aside, providers also faced a tremendous challenge when they submitted documentation of courses for approval. Each jurisdiction had different requirements. It was a tremendous burden for providers to understand and comply with the nuances of the varying requirements by boards. Theoretically, if a provider wanted to be approved by all U.S. boards, she or he had to submit documentation to all 51 boards (50 states, plus the District of Columbia).

One-stop course approval

With the development and implementation of PACE, all that is changed:

1. A CE provider applies for recognition, which affirms willingness and capability to comply with PACE requirements. The provider submits samples of educational materials and teaching processes representative of previous CE courses with the application.

2. The PACE review team studies the application material. The review team will be composed of faculty members belonging to the Association of Chiropractic Colleges who are familiar with postgraduate education. Once the review team is satisfied that the applicant can comply with PACE requirements, it recommends approval to the PACE committee.

3. The PACE committee reviews the application. The committee, composed primarily of regulatory board members, ascertains if the application complies with public protection requirements inherent in statutes and regulations. If the committee is satisfied, it forwards its recommendation for approval to the FCLB board of directors for final approval.

Once approved, the provider enjoys PACE recognition status for up to three years.

4. All courses that feature the PACE logo qualify for automatic CE approval by participating regulatory boards. These courses are registered on the FCLB public Web site. Doctors can review various courses and be assured of relicensure credit. Individual courses are reviewed retrospectively to ensure continued compliance with PACE requirements.

5. PACE providers register participants in their courses with the FCLB, which in turn notifies the regulatory boards about the number of approved hours each doctor has achieved.

Chiropractors who use PACE courses to attain or exceed the minimum number of hours required to maintain their licenses may be automatically exempted from random compliance audits by the boards. The FCLB will retain a permanent record of CE course attendance as a service to the doctors.

Chiropractic is the last major profession to offer centralized CE approval for relicensure purposes. The positive aspect of that scenario is that we’ve had a chance to build a chiropractic model that capitalizes on the strengths of other programs and avoids some their pitfalls.

The FCLB, in fact, surveyed the programs of other professions to make sure it understood the benefits and pitfalls.

One thing you should note: PACE is voluntary and will not include all CEs for relicensure purposes. Programs offered only in a local area may elect to apply directly to the board for approval as they do now. This program will work best for programs that are offered in multiple jurisdictions.

We are convinced that the overall cost for both providers and licensing boards will be notably reduced using economies of scale and shared resources. Practitioners will find CE compliance with CE relicensure requirements vastly simplified. But most importantly, patients can be assured that CEs obtained through PACE help their doctors continue on a lifelong path of professional development for their ultimate benefit. u

Richard Cole, DC, is president of the Federation of Chiropractic Licensing Boards. He can be contacted at info@fclb.org. For more information about PACE, go to the FCLB Web site, www.fclb.org.