The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB), www.fsmb.org a national nonprofit representing 70 medical and osteopathic boards of the U.S and territories recently unveiled an updated draft interstate compact for physician licensure.
According to Dr. Humayun J.Chaudhry President, and CEO of FSMB, “The revised compact helps ensure that as the practice of telemedicine continues to expand, patient protection remains a top priority. We look forward to sharing the revised compact with state medical boards across the country and look forward to working with them to achieve implementation.”
The Compact offers a streamlined alternative pathway for state-based licensure that would create a new process for faster licensing for physicians interested in practicing in multiple states, including those who practice telemedicine, and reaffirms the location of a patient as the jurisdiction for oversight and patient protections.
This will help facilitate licensure portability and telemedicine while widening access to healthcare by physicians, particularly in underserved areas of the nation. Although the Compact doesn’t establish standards for telemedicine practice, it is expected to enhance telemedicine by significantly expediting multi-state licensure.
Physicians who wish to participate in the Compact must submit to fingerprinting or to other biometric background checks to be eligible for licensure in additional states. The Compact would also alter specialty board certification requirements to clarify that those with time-unlimited certification are also eligible.
The Compact would also require that physicians who wish to participate in the compact to have passed each component of the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination or the Comprehensive Osteopathic Medicine Licensing Examination within three attempts.
In another announcement, Data Commons, LLC, (www.MYDataCommons.org) a new company delivering data on physicians, has launched two services. The company provides data about physician enrollment, licensure, and certification on demand and directly from multiple source organizations all through a single hub.
One of the services is their “Verification Service” . This service supports companies that need to verify whether an individual is a medical student or licensed physician. Their “Verification Plus Service” supports the credentialing and/or privileging of physicians, and provides the user with data related to the employment of a specific physician.