Florida to Run SAM Meeting as a Hybrid Event Beginning this Week

Florida is running their annual SAM meeting as a hybrid event this week, allowing up to 400 attendees to attend live and in-person, and live streaming the event to others. The FPMA announced on Oct 9th that they have petitioned the Florida Board of Podiatry to allow half of CME credit to be earned online, up from their former 20%. The Florida Board of Podiatric Medicine sets CME policy for podiatrists in the State of Florida. The FPMA does not. The new biennium period began this past March 31, so Florida podiatrists currently need to earn 80% of their CME requirement or 32 CECHs live in-person before March 31, 2022, unless the Florida Board of Podiatric Medicine grants the FPMA request to allow them to earn up to 20 credits online. In that case, Florida podiatrists will still need to earn 20 credits at live in-person events before March 31, 2022. CME of exactly one hour in length, and in increments of 1 hour, does qualify for CME by rules set forth by the Florida Board of Podiatric Medicine. Florida is the only state in the country to limit online CME to programming in one (1) hour increments, effectively excluding their members from benefitting from most online CME programming for podiatrists. The registration fees for all FPMA conferences are included in the annual dues of FPMA members, they are not paid for in advance.