Board-approved course meets new Florida relicensure requirement for allopathic and osteopathic physicians
Baptist Health South Florida, the largest not-for-profit healthcare organization in South Florida, is now providing a free online course called Prescribing Controlled Substances, which meets Florida’s new, mandatory requirement for physician education on controlled substances. In an effort to reduce addiction and the number of deaths due to opioids and other controlled substances, the legislature passed The Controlled Substances Bill (HB 21) that requires all Florida healthcare practitioners registered with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency to prescribe controlled substances to complete a continuing education course by Jan. 31, 2019, and at each subsequent licensure renewal.
Baptist Health’s 2-hour Prescribing Controlled Substances course, which is approved by the Florida Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine, is available at Compliance.BaptistHealth.net (select Prescribing Controlled Substances under course title). The course is for all licensed allopathic and osteopathic physicians, including physicians with a limited license, temporary certificate holders and residents.
Language in the HB 21 bill stated that only a statewide physician association could offer the course, however Baptist Health’s Continuing Medical Education (CME) department was successful in securing approval from the Florida Board of Medicine to offer the course by demonstrating that physicians across the state look to Baptist Health for education that improves practice efficiencies, delivery of care and patient outcomes.
“We are very proud to offer our new course about this critical topic to our medical community across the state in order to help make a difference in patients’ health,” said Bernie Fernandez Jr., M.D., CEO of Baptist Health Medical Group. “This is part of our organization’s commitment to offering high-quality continuing medical education to our medical staff and other physicians who are lifelong learners.”
Since 1992, Baptist Health’s CME program has been nationally accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education and has been awarded Accreditation with Commendation for the past three reaccreditation cycles. Baptist Health offers nearly 300 CME/CE activities annually, and its CME Online Learning Program includes more than 150 courses online, with 23,000 learners associated with the Baptist Health CME Portal from 37 counties in Florida. All of Baptist Health’s CME Online Learning Program courses are free of charge.
