The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) has been awarded a three-year grant from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to continue initiatives currently underway to streamline the state medical licensure process and reduce statutory and regulatory barriers to telemedicine. The grant is the third the FSMB has received from HRSA since 2006 to facilitate license portability.
Thirty-six licensing authorities supported the FSMB's grant application and two partner organizations - Administrators in Medicine (AIM) and the American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA) - will participate in the three-year grant project plan.
"State medical boards recognize that telemedicine - and the growth of practicing medicine across state lines - are growing factors in the overall practice of medicine," said Lance Talmage, MD, Chair of the FSMB. "FSMB has been proactively developing tools such as a uniform licensing application and streamlined credentials verification to allow state boards to bring more standardization to licensing processes, while maintaining jurisdiction over physicians practicing in their states. We are pleased with the ongoing support of HRSA and look forward to continued progress in our efforts to enhance license portability."
The new grant will support these ongoing initiatives: