Specialty Certification: Coming in 2011

In 2011, NCCPA will launch a new voluntary specialty certification program. Initially the program will include five specialties; we anticipate adding others over time based on ongoing assessment of need, feasibility, interest within the specialty and other factors.

The first five specialty certification programs will be offered in emergency medicine, orthopedic surgery, cardiovascular surgery, nephrology and psychiatry.

Believing passionately that certified PAs are critical to the delivery of high quality, accessible, affordable health care, NCCPA is working to equip them with the credentials they need to effectively document their specialty training, experience and expertise. That's important for PAs, their physician partners, and the patients they serve. From NCCPA’s perspective, it’s also important that the new process reflects our commitment to established standards of quality and rigor in assessment and certification programs. And for certified PAs, we understand that the ability to move among specialties is a foundational tenet of the PA profession that should be preserved.

The process in development addresses all those issues.

First, to qualify for specialty certification, PAs must hold the PA-C designation and either an unrestricted state PA license or comparable authorization to practice from a federal agency (i.e., the Department of Defense or Department of Veterans Affairs). This preserves the PA-C as the primary credential for the PA profession, reflecting the generalist training and expertise at the core of the profession. It also establishes specialty certification as something voluntarily obtained after licensure, not a requirement for it—which is important for PAs who want to change specialties.

For PAs meeting those basic prerequisites, the specialty certification process will include four core requirements: Category I specialty CME, procedures and patient case logging appropriate for the specialty, one to two years of experience (or an acceptable formalized clinical training substitution) and a specialty exam.

The first three requirements listed above may be completed in any order. Once complete, the specialty certification candidate is eligible for the exam.

We recognize that one size will not fit all. To appropriately engage PA and physician specialists and specialty organizations in the development of specialty-specific requirements, NCCPA assembled advisory committees to further define the CME, procedure and patient case logging, and experience requirements for each specialty. Appropriate physician and PA organizations were invited to appoint members to the advisory committees; and they were joined by at-large members chosen from PAs practicing in the specialty. Recommendations from those groups are currently under consideration

To maintain specialty certification, re-testing will be required at the same interval required of PAs maintaining the PA-C credential. Additional details—including fees—will be developed over the coming months and announced in 2010.

Comments about the new specialty certification program? Please write us at comments@nccpa.net.