04/19/2007

Update on the Prescriptive Rules Process - April 2007

UPDATE ON THE PRESCRIPTIVE RULES PROCESS

Over the past year the Medical Board staff and the Physician Assistant Policy Committee (PAPC), with input from OAPA, developed the prescriptive authority rules as required by law. Draft rules were sent to the Physician Assistant Committee (PA Committee) that, in turn, sent them to the Medical Board. The Medical Board authorized a public hearing and the hearing was held on April 2, 2007.

Prior to the hearing, OAPA had an attorney review the draft rules and 27 points were brought to our attention that needed to be addressed in the rules. These points were summarized in OAPA's testimony at the hearing.

OAPA and two other interested parties testified at the hearing and the hearing examiner compiled the testimony and sent it to the PA Committee that, in turn, sent it back to the PAPC for consideration.

The PAPC will next meet on May 8 and will decide to keep the rules as originally drafted or make some, or all, of the changes that OAPA has recommended. Once the PAPC is satisfied with the rules, they will go back to the PA Committee and then back to the Medical Board for adoption. Once the Medical Board adopts the rules they will go to the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (JCARR), a committee made up of Senators and Representatives, and that body will decide if the rules meet the intent of the law. Once approved by JCARR, the rules will become effective 10 days later.

What this means is that we will probably not see the rules finalized before July 2007. OAPA is not overly concerned about the delay in promulgating the rules because the association would like the rules to be as close to perfect as possible and believes that the extra time is needed to fulfill our obligation to the membership. The Medical Board did actually meet the year time frame that was required by law.

We apologize for any misunderstanding of the process or reference to any specific dates of completion of the rules which we may have communicated to the membership. In performing due diligence by hiring an attorney to review the proposed rules, we hope to have rules that will make Ohio a great State to be a PA.

Once the rules have been finalized, OAPA will notify the membership and provide as many details as we have on applying for your Certificate to Prescribe. The Medical Board staff has not yet developed any of the forms that will be used to apply nor have they defined the goals or objectives for the clinical hours. They have also not defined what documentation will be needed to prove completion of the CME hours or a process for verifying those that meet the grandfather requirements.