March 2011: Update

The ASCP Board of Certification hired Patricia Tanabe, MPA, MLS(ASCP)CM as the new Executive Director of the BOC.  Pat replaces Dr. Blair Holladay, who became the Executive Vice President of ASCP.  Pat was formerly the manager of examination activities for the BOC.  Blair, a cytotechnologist, is the first non-physician to head the American Society for Clinical Pathology.

There has been much discussion of the requirements for certification maintenance (recertification) since the merger of NCA and the ASCP Board of Registry.  NCA accepted all laboratory –related continuing education and the BOR had a requirement for generalists to have a distribution of credits among the major areas of the laboratory.  Randomly seleceted certificants from both NCA and BOR origins were surveyed as to their opinion of the distribution requirements.  (About 55 Minnesotans responded.)  Results of the survey, taken in summer/fall 2010, support the continued use of continuing education distribution requirements for generalist certification.  No official action has been taken by the BOC, but it is likely that the current distribution requirements will remain in place for MLS and MLT.  See the web site for details.

http://ascp.org/FunctionalNavigation/certification/CertificationMaintenanceProgramCMP.aspx

The “membership voucher” program which had allowed certificants who had been ASCP members for three years to recertify at no charge will be discontinued 12/31/11.  The program was contrary to the accreditation requirement that certification and membership be completely separated.

The ASCP re.member program continues in place, but it does not include any discount on recertification, only access to a program that reminds certificants how long they have until recertification and what distribution requirements remain to be fulfilled.  (Regardless of membership in any organization, everyone who is due to recertify should receive reminders by email and mail.)

Numbers of applications for examinations and especially numbers of those recertifying were both up significantly in 2010 following the merger with NCA.

The full BOC will see customer service metrics such as phone wait times, turnaround times for exam applications, turnaround times for recertification applications, etc, at its meeting on April 2 and 3, 2011.  An advisory committee will be formed to work with staff on web site improvement.  Scott Aikey (ASCLS) will be a member of this committee.  An advisory committee of program directors will be established.

Because there has been confusion about the new terminology for the B.S. degree generalist, let me remind you that the MLS(ASCP)CM title is to be used only by those who participate in certificate maintenance (recertification).  Those who were ASCP certified prior to 1/1/2004 (and choose not to participate in recertification still use the title MT(ASCP).  Since NCA always required recertification every three years, the last CLS(NCA) titles will expire in August 2012, three years after the merger.  Expired NCA credentials can be reinstate by completing certificate maintenance and converting to MLS(ASCP)CM.  The use of the CM superscript for other certifications is similarly only to be used by those who recertify.

As always, feel free to contact me with questions.

Kathy Hansen, MLS(ASCP)CM

Khansen3@fairview.org

April 2, 2010: - Board of Certification News

The issue of continuing education credit (point) distribution for Certificate Maintenance (recertification) has become a hot topic for the Board of Certification.  The CMP (Certificate Maintenance Program) Committee plans to survey certificants in two ways during the spring and summer of 2010.

The first survey to go out will go to all ASCP BOR certified individuals (pre-2004) who have chosen to voluntarily participate in CMP and will focus on why they made that choice and what benefits they see from it.  This survey was planned prior to the unification of NCA and the ASCP BOR.

The second survey will go to a broader group of randomly selected certificants.  It will ask questions about the continuing education credit (point) distribution among other things.  This survey should come out in June.

There are a number of opinions on the topic and the survey data should help to determine whether most certificants see the current requirements for generalist certificants to have continuing education in all four areas (two hours each in chemistry, hematology, blood bank, microbiology out of the 36 hours required per three years) as a barrier or as something that prompts them to learn about changes in the broader field of medical laboratory science.

Please respond if you receive one of these surveys.

Kathy Hansen

February 7, 2009: More on Certification and Recertification

There have been some bumps in the road as the newly merged Board of Certification becomes operational.   Some issues were encountered with the merging of the NCA and ASCP-BOR data bases.  It was intended that for active NCA certificants, their NCA contact information would over-write any older information that was in the old ASCP-BOR data base. Apparently in some instances, that did not happen, and the old information was retained.

All NCA certificants are encouraged to visit the Board of Certification web site by June 2010 to set up a profile with their most recent information, including email address.  On the web page, http://ascp.org/FunctionalNavigation/certification/CertificationMaintenanceProgramCMP.aspx

Select Create Account from the menu on the right.  If you run into issues with access, feel free to contact ASCP-BOC staff for assistance. The BOC has added customer service staff and has reduced wait time for calls to be handled. If you need to go above the person who is helping you, the certification director is Gerry Piskorski.

Former NCA certificants who are due to recertify in February are encouraged to use the on-line declaration to enter continuing education credits. Remember that during 2010, any distribution of laboratory-related CE credits is acceptable.

The merger agreement between NCA and the old ASCP-BOR provided that all sponsoring organizations would have access to the data base of certificants for purposes of marketing membership in their member organizations, ASCLS, ASCP, and AGT. (As of 2/5/10, ASCLS does not yet have the newly merged data base.)  Remember that certification and membership are not the same thing! ASCP as a membership organization is marketing a dual membership and recertification program called re-Member. Although this offers a discounted rate over separate recertification and membership, please renew your ASCLS membership and recertify through the BOC when recertification is due, and encourage your colleagues to do the same.

Your ASCLS representatives to the BOC are pushing for clearer “unbundling” of the BOC from the ASCP membership organization. We have also raised the issue of required distribution of credits for recertification.  Some of these concerns will take some time to resolve.

Feel free to contact me with your concerns.

Kathy Hansen

December 15, 2009: The Changing World of Certification

Part of the reason for the merger at this time is that the philosophical differences that divided the BOR and NCA (and led to the formation of NCA in the mid 1970’s) have been resolved.  These are:

• Certification of the profession by the profession.  (The new 26 member BOC does include five pathologists, but 20 of the members are laboratory professionals.  The previous NCA Board did not have any physician members.)
• Recertification by continuing education (CE) as a condition for maintaining certification status.  (NCA always required this; ASCP has required for those certified since 1/1/04.)
• Use of job analysis as the basis for competency-based, legally defensible examinations.

These principles are part of the new BOC policies.  The existence of one major certification agency will also reduce confusion among students and employers about qualifications.

Since its founding in 1928, ASCP has certified more than 400,000 laboratorians and estimates that as many as 250,000 of them may still be in the work force at this time.  NCA, founded in 1976, brought about 75,000 active and inactive certificants to the merger.

As you may know, the former titles of the various certifications have also been changed/combined as part of the merger, with the most visible change being the use of Medical Laboratory Scientist for the baccalaureate degree generalist.  This new title is more consistent with those used in Europe and much of the rest of the world.

Those who had active status with NCA or who have participated in the ASCP certificate maintenance program were automatically transferred to the new titles on 10/23/09.  ASCP has used the superscript CM to designate those who are recertifying, either voluntarily or because it is required for them (see below).

Here are the various scenarios that apply to those previously certified by one of the former agencies:

• Certified by ASCP prior to January 1, 2004:  This conferred “lifetime certification”, although these individuals are strongly encouraged to voluntarily participate in the recertification (certificate maintenance) program.  If not recertifying, these individuals will continue to use the old MT(ASCP), MLT(ASCP), PBT(ASCP), etc designations.
• Certified by ASCP after January 1, 2004:  These individuals are required to recertify by submitting documentation of continuing education every three years to the certificate maintenance program.  They will use the new designation of MLS(ASCP)^CM , MLT(ASCP)^CM, etc.  If they do not recertify, they are considered to be no longer certified, and any caller to the BOC will be told that they are not currently certified.
• Certified by NCA at any time and have continued to recertify:  Those with current certification status with NCA (remember that one of the founding principles of NCA was to require recertification) have been transferred to the BOC data base and have received the new titles of MLS(ASCP)^CM , MLT(ASCP)^CM, etc.

• Certified by NCA at any time and have not continued to recertify:  These individuals are NOT considered certified at this time.  Any caller to the BOC to verify certification status will be told that they are not certified.  These individuals have the option at any time to begin participating in the recertification (certificate maintenance) program by submitting evidence of CE.  They can then use the new titles of MLS(ASCP)^CM , MLT(ASCP)^CM, etc, and will have to continue to recertify every three years.

Note:  Those who recertify during 2010 may use either the former BOR or NCA criteria for distribution of CE credits.

I am a board member of the new BOC and am serving on the certificate maintenance (recertification) committee.  Please feel free to contact me about questions or concerns that you may have.

Kathy Hansen

November 10, 2010: The formation of the ASCP Board of Certification via the merger of the former ASCP Board of Registry and the National Credentialing Agency (NCA) occurred just over a year ago.  Many issues have been addressed during that year, and more changes are still to come, including the redesign of the BOC web site to clarify the differences between the BOC and its sponsoring membership organizations, which are ASCP, ASCLS, and AGT (Association of Genetic Technologists).

One concern which is moving closer to resolution is the requirements for recertification.  As you know, laboratory professionals who achieved certification with the Board of Registry after January 1, 2004, and all certificants who had only NCA certification are required to recertify every three years.  Twelve hours of continuing education per year (36 hours for the three year period) are required.  NCA accepted all laboratory-related continuing education, while the former BOR had requirements for distribution of the CE credits.  For a generalist MLS/CLS/MT or MLT/CLT the 36 hours must include one hour of laboratory safety, and two hours in each of the generalist areas:  chemistry, hematology, microbiology, and immunohematology (blood bank). 

The distribution requirement policy was carried forward to the new BOC, with the exception that former NCA certificants who recertify during calendar year 2010 need not meet the distribution requirement.  During this year, the Certification Maintenance Committee (of which I am a member) has been considering whether to continue the distribution requirement after January 1, 2011.

Data to aid in making this decision was collected via an on-line survey that was taken in August and September this year.  Although a decision has not yet been finalized, it appears that the survey results support leaving the distribution requirements in place.

Four randomly selected groups of certificants were surveyed.  There were 2557 responses, 106 of which came from Minnesota:

 A significant majority of those who are recertifying seem to think that the point distribution is not difficult to achieve.  Of those who are not recertifying, it appears that the elimination of the point distribution requirement would not bring many of them into the ranks of those who do recertify.

Again, a final decision has not been made on whether to retain the point requirement.  However, my sense is that the policy will continue, and those who are due to recertify in 2011 or later should plan to meet the requirement.  If you are a former NCA certificant who either lapsed or was due to recertify in 2010, you may submit your application before the end of December without meeting the requirement.

Feel free to contact me if you have questions about this.

Submitted by Kathy Hansen (khansen3@fairview.org)