OBNE Public Meeting, June 1 2009

My apologies for the late posting of this meeting. Some of the business is now somewhat outdated, but my summary is here nonetheless. I am not an official minute keeper, so please note that there may be an occasional error as I do not have the opportunity to double check this with the board.

Opening Business: Minutes of previous meeting approved, typos corrected,approved addition of OAR 850-060-225 and 226: Formulary Compendium and classifications.

Non-ND/ND investigations: The public is not meant to know who these people are, only a small degree of the circumstances. If an investigation leads to formal discipline, only then will the person names become public.

09-00-ON-1: Complaint regarding and advertisement of ND services where the ND had left the business. They were notified and addressed the problem promptly and the board dismissed the complaint as simple oversight. Dismissed with no action.

N08-09-20N: Closed case, overlapped with the medical board.

N09-05-11N: Other board licensee was selling supplements and diagnosing medical issues, investigation open

N09-05-12N: individual claiming to be an ND selling supplements. Investigation open.

09-02-04, 05, and 06: issued proposed discipline

08-08-18A: issued proposed discipline

09-00-ON1: Motion to close with no action

08-09-11N : Motion to close with no action

Bill Report:

SB 131: The Governor signed SB 131 changing the name of the Board from the Oregon Board of Naturopathic Examiners to the Oregon Board of Naturopathic Medicine. Look our for the OBNM this January!

SB 132: At this time was awaiting a vote on the House floor to increase the civil penalty maximum amount to $5000. This civil penalty amount is used by the Board to discipline licensees. (This was signed by G. Kulongoski on June 18)

SB 327A: This is the monumental bill that allows NDs to prescribe in accordance with their training rather than according to drug structure. At this time was passed by the Senate, 22-7, and awaiting a vote on the House floor. The initial bill was an exclusionary bill, meaning that it was going to be a short list of medications NDs couldn’t prescribe. Though Pharmacists and Nurses supported this, DOs and the OMB protested and requested an inclusionary bill as a compromise. This was adopted in the end, so a lengthy list is being compiled of all the drugs NDs can prescribe rather than a very short, simple list of all the drugs NDs can’t prescribe. (G. Kulongoski signed this into law June 18th!!!)

The Formulary council will tentatively be meeting September 11^th, for those interested in weighing in on this process.

Continuing Education discussion:

A doctor/professor at NCNM proposed increasing the CE requirements to relate to and likely exceed those of MDs in Oregon. The goal is for Oregon to be a leader in the country as a state of quality alternative medical care. Additionally, it was brought up that by 2014 all practitioners will be required to use electronic medical records. There was a considerable discussion about how much to increase the hours by and across how many years. The Board was sensitive to the concerns that it would be cost-prohibitive to new practitioners and looked into options to make it easier. The recommendations will be transformed into rules for the next meeting.

Ended up with:

35 Hours Next year

50 hours the following and thereafter

No restrictions on subject areas, except 3 must be in ethics

10 hours must be “in person.” Virtual presence is not “in person.”

OBNE Public Meeting, April 6

Today I headed over to the public meeting of OBNE (the Oregon Board of Naturopathic Examiners). A few of the highlights are listed below, and minutes to this (and all other public meetings) can be found at http://www.oregon.gov/OBNE/BOARD.shtml

I. Legislative Updates: Thinking the meeting started later I missed the legislative update. However, SB 327 which "modernizes" the ND formulary was being voted on in the Senate today and will likely go to the house soon. Make sure to contact your representative if you have an opinion about this bill, or even better, if you have personal experience with the formulary. Read the text of the bill here if you are interested. More comments from Holistic Health Law to come.

II. To increase or not to increase ND CME hour requirements... That is the question.
In order to set the national bar for ND quality the board is considering raising the number of required CE hours from 25 to 30 or 35. This discussion involved the weighing of many factors and all agreed that the issue was not urgent and could be brought up at the next meeting on June 1, 2009. A few of the major considerations are improving the ethics education of NDs, how to make sure new practitioners can afford to get the credits, the administrative costs of approving CE courses, and the ability of NDs to take increased hours in on-line CE courses. As the meetings are public after 10:30 am or so anyone may come to voice his or her opinion on the matter. Emails can also be sent to the board to communicate an opinion.

III. Miscellaneous scope of practice issues:
a) Vasectomies will likely be considered within the scope of an NDs practice because they should be considered minor surgery.

b) Lipolysis will also likely be considered within the scope of an NDs practice because it is likewise considered a minor surgery.

c) Assisted suicide is NOT within an NDs scope of practice or even close.

d) Employee-provided IV therapy: An ND raised the question of whether or not s/he can hire and train employees to administer IV therapy and kelation therapy. The board asserts that so long as the employee is under "direct supervision" this is permitted. "Direct Supervision" is defined by OAR 850-010-0005 (3). ”Direct Supervision” means that a licensed Naturopathic physician is physically present in the clinic, is monitoring and directly responsible for activities of supervised person, and is available to intervene if necessary.

e) More investigation is required to address two additional questions regarding, first, POLST, and second, ND provision of special education assessment.

The meeting ended approximately 1:30 pm.