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Federal, state campaigns aim to protect traveling sports medicine professionals
Updated legislation would provide more supervision, transparency for the transportation of controlled substances.
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Several concerns may arise when it comes to sports medicine professionals who care for athletes on the road, including fear of practicing outside of their licensed state and malpractice issues. To ease the minds of physicians, the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine partnered with the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons to start both federal and state-by-state campaigns addressing these and other related issues.
Known as the Sports Medicine Licensure Clarity Act, Amy Callender, director of government affairs for the National Athletic Trainers Association, told Orthopedics Today the bill would allow for the transportability of liability insurance across state lines for physicians traveling with their sports teams.
“You have sports medicine professionals who are providing these services that they are contractually and morally obligated to perform, but they are doing so at huge professional and financial risk,” Callender said. “This bill would help to eliminate some of the risk they are incurring to practice.”
Introduced at the beginning of the 115th Congress, the federal bill was passed in the House of Representatives in January 2017 and in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in September 2018.
Organizations such as the AOSSM, AAOS and NATA are working to gather support to help secure a full vote of the Senate, according to Callender.
“We have a ... well-rounded group of interested parties that are working to advance this effort and a lot of them have done grassroots and individual lobbying. They have done call to action through their memberships, those types of things,” she said.
State-by-state statutes
AOSSM and state orthopedic societies are also working to pass statutes in every state to accompany the federal bill, according to Christopher C. Kaeding, MD, orthopedic surgeon and executive director of sports medicine at The Ohio State University. He told Orthopedics Today the state statute would allow physicians with a license in good standing in their home state traveling with their sports team across state lines to be exempt from the licensure requirements of the state they are visiting.
About 14 states had legislation that protected traveling physicians when the process began, Kaeding said.
“We now have 40 states that passed [the bill] and we have another nine states that the bill is going through the legislative process,” Kaeding said.
He noted there are several stipulations that go along with the Sports Medicine Licensure Clarity Act, which include physicians can only provide care to members in their traveling party and not individuals of the state they are visiting and there is a time limit of up to 30 days.
Kaeding and Callender are advocating for all health care professionals to be involved in the process and support these initiatives.
“Even if the Sports Medicine Licensure Clarity Act does not impact you specifically in the setting of where you work, if you are asked to take action on it, it is important to do so if it helps promote other health professions being able to practice ... without the fear of professional and financial repercussions,” Callender said.
Transportation of controlled substances
Another bill that affects sports medicine professionals is the Medical Controlled Substance Transportation Act of 2017, which would replace the Controlled Substance Act of 1970, according to Kaeding. The existing act prohibits transportation of controlled substances and requires physicians to collect these from a Drug Enforcement Administration-approved distribution site.
Although there are concerns with this new bill in regard to the opioid epidemic, Kaeding noted it would add more supervision and transparency concerning where the controlled substances are located.
“It would allow a physician to apply for a separate, mobile registration that would be good for 72 hours,” he said.
Kaeding added physicians would have to document when they took out the controlled substances, how the substances were distributed and when the substances were returned.
“It is going to allow physicians to provide best care for their patients and at the same time not be cavalier about the concern about controlled substances not being tracked or being diverted, meaning going to people and places they should not be going because they are not being tracked or regulated,” Kaeding said. – by Casey Tingle
- References:
- AAOS legislative and regulatory wins. Available at: www.aaos.org/uploadedFiles/PreProduction/Advocacy/AAOS%20Wins%202017-2018.pdf. Accessed Aug. 21, 2018.
- Senate passes sports medicine licensure clarity act. Available at: http://newsroom.aaos.org/media-resources/Press-releases/sports-medicine-licensure-clarity-act.htm. Accessed Sept. 18, 2018.
- Sports Medicine Licensure Clarity Act. Available at: www.aaos.org/uploadedFiles/PreProduction/Advocacy/Federal/Issues/mlr/2017%20Issue%20One%20Page%20-%20Sports%20Medicine%20Licensure%20Clarity%20Act.pdf. Accessed Aug. 21, 2018.
- For more information:
- Amy Callender can be reached at 1620 Valwood Parkway, Suite 115, Carrollton, TX 75006; email: amyc@nata.org.
- Christopher C. Kaeding, MD, can be reached at 2835 Fred Taylor Drive, Columbus, OH 43202; email: ip@aaos.org.
Disclosures: Callender and Kaeding report no relevant financial disclosures.