Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

View the Request for CME Certification (PDF) form. This form will provide basic information to the Office of CME on your proposed CME activity. Specific information about your activity will be required closer to the proposed date of the activity. We will put your proposed activity in our planning calendar and begin regular communication with you in the planning and implementation process. A meeting will be scheduled with the Activity Director and Planning Committee to discuss your plans and answer your questions.

Please note: We require that this initial form be completed and received in our office no later than 6 months prior to the date of the proposed activity. This important requirement is included on the form.

Below are some suggestions:

• What are some patient care scenarios that you find difficult to manage or resolve?
• What are the key issues or obstacles to care you or your colleagues encounter?
• What areas of practice in your hospital or clinical practice setting need improvement?
• What areas of practice is there broad variation among your physicians?
• Which clinical situations make you uncomfortable or keep you awake at night?

Q: What’s the difference between competence and performance?

Competence is the ability to put knowledge into action, the strategy, what learners would do if they could. Performance is putting action into practice to change outcomes.

Q: What is commitment to change?

Commitment to change is a simple way of discovering actual changes in the learner's practice that resulted from the educational activity. Learners are asked to write down those changes in their practice they intend to implement. At 1-3 months in the future, the learner is contacted and asked about the status of implementation of the intended changes, barriers identified, and the next steps identified. They can be used for evaluation at the performance level. The MUSC OCME can provide you with more details and assistance with instituting the commitment to change strategy. Please don’t hesitate to contact them at 843-876-1925.

Q:What is an ineligible company?

Ineligible Companies are those whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. Examples of such organizations include: 

  • Advertising, marketing, or communication firms whose clients are ineligible companies
  • Bio-medical startups that have begun a governmental regulatory approval process
  • Compounding pharmacies that manufacture proprietary compounds
  • Device manufacturers or distributors
  • Diagnostic labs that sell proprietary products
  • Growers, distributors, manufacturers or sellers of medical foods and dietary supplements
  • Manufacturers of health-related wearable products
  • Pharmaceutical companies or distributors
  • Pharmacy benefit managers
 • Reagent manufacturers or sellers

Q:What is an eligible company?

Eligible organizations are those whose mission and function are: (1) providing clinical services directly to patients; or (2) the education of healthcare professionals; or (3) serving as fiduciary to patients, the public, or population health; and other organizations that are not otherwise ineligible. Examples of such organizations include:

  • Ambulatory procedure centers
  • Blood banks
  • Diagnostic labs that do not sell proprietary products
  • Electronic health records companies
  • Government or military agencies
  • Group medical practices
  • Health law firms
  • Health profession membership organizations
  • Hospitals or healthcare delivery systems
  • Infusion centers
  • Insurance or managed care companies
  • Nursing homes
  • Pharmacies that do not manufacture proprietary compounds
  • Publishing or education companies
  • Rehabilitation centers
  • Schools of medicine or health science universities
  • Software or game developers

Q: Who needs to identify their relevant financial relationships?

Identifying relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies is the first step in a 3-step process. Everyone who is in a position to control or influence the content is required to disclose their relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies.

It is not just the presenters who must disclose, but everyone who is in control of content of the CME activity. This includes conference directors, coordinators, planners, moderators, authors, editors and others.

Q: How should we identify relevant financial relationships?

All finical relationships must be disclosed. The MUSC OCME will determine the relevancy of the relationship and mitigate the relationship accordingly. 

The MUSC OCME will mitigate any relevant financial relationship. Mitigation options include, but are not limited to, attestation and peer review. 

When there is a relevant financial relationship, the learners need to be informed of the name of the person with the relationship, the name of the company or companies with whom the relationship exists, and the nature of the relationship (research support, consultant, speakers bureau, employment and others).

For example: John Adams – Research Grant - XYZ Pharmaceuticals.

When no relevant relationships are disclosed the following language must be used:

John Adams has no relevant financial relationships to disclose.

All disclosures must be made before the CME activity begins. This is required.

The method for disclosure may be one or more of the following:

• Printed at the front of the course syllabus or on the first page of the speaker's handout
• As part of the any announcements and reminders that are printed or distributed electronically by e-mail or posted.
• Inserted as the second slide in the presenter's PowerPoint series
• Verbally disclosed from the podium, with a written attestation, signed by the moderator who was present in the room at the time, containing precise language that demonstrates that the presence or absence of a relevant financial relationship was disclosed to the audience prior to the beginning of the CME activity.

The name of the commercial entity and the nature of their support must be disclosed to the audience prior to the activity. The nature of support may be through an educational grant or in-kind support (use of durable equipment, animal parts or tissue, disposable supplies, human parts or tissue, facilities/space or other).

A relevant financial relationship is a financial relationship, in any amount, occurring within the past 24 months that creates a conflict of interest. It is a relationship relevant to the role of the individual participating in the activity to control or influence content development and implementation. This might include involvement in a speaker’s bureau, research support, consultant relationship, stockholder, paid honorarium, employment, etc.

Q: When do relationships create “conflicts of interest”?

The ACCME considers financial relationships to create actual conflict of interest in CME when individuals have both a financial relationship with an ineligible company and the opportunity to affect the content of CME about the products or services of that ineligible company.

All Letter of Agreements must go through Symplr for review, approval and signature. The supporting company must forward the full executed Letter of Agreement to the MUSC OCME prior to the start of the CME activity. This is a requirement by ACCME and MUSC OCME. Only 1 signed letter of agreement per company per activity will be permitted.

Terms cannot be accepted without prior approval by MUSC OCME. As soon as you receive a notice that a grant is approved pending acceptance of the terms online, provide MUSC OCME with your login information or a copy of the original grant request and the electronic agreement terms. MUSC OCME will review the terms and forward to the MUSC General Counsel’s Office for their review, if necessary. ACCME has specific requirements for acceptance of electronic Letters of Agreement.

Q: When can I acknowledge commercial support?

The grant letter of agreement must be fully executed (signed by MUSC OCME and the commercial interest) prior to being announced in marketing materials AND prior to the activity occurring.

No, receiving exhibit space in return for providing an educational grant would be placing a condition on the grant and that is not allowed. Selling exhibit space to ineligible companies is considered to be a business transaction. Income from selling exhibit space is not considered to be commercial support as defined by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education. Educational grants should be kept completely separate and distinct from the purchase of exhibit space. Companies must pay an exhibit fee even if their company is providing an educational grant to support the CME activity.

Q: Who is the CME Provider?

The Accredited CME Provider is the Medical University of South Carolina, not individual MUSC Departments or Divisions or MUHA. The Accredited Provider must be listed as Medical University of South Carolina. The Office of CME is responsible for assuring regulatory compliance for all CME activities, awarding AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)TM to all physicians, maintenance of CME credit records and required annual and reaccreditation reports to our accrediting body, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME).

The MUSC OCME is responsible to ensure that all activities are in compliance with the ACCME policies and accreditation criteria. Onsite observation of the CME activity is a means for the OCME office to verify that the activity is in compliance.