In May, CPME released sample templates for a few frequently used documents:

Faculty Disclosure Agreement

Commercial Interest Agreement (Letter of Agreement)

Joint Provider Agreement

These samples will be especially helpful to approved CME providers because they provide a framework with all required elements that organizations can use as a base and customize with their specific activity information.

In reviewing the documents, there were a few things that stood out to me.

Faculty Disclosure Agreement

I appreciate how they broke out potential conflicts for specific roles: Instructors/Presenters/Authors and Planners/Approval Committee/Activity Director/Moderators. Particularly listing Planners, etc will serve as a reminder to organizations that anyone involved in the planning process must sign a disclosure. This includes third party consultants, executive directors and other administrative staff that is often overlooked. This section also proposes methods to solve any conflicts. Organizations should adopt these suggested conflict resolutions and include them in their Standard Operating Procedures.

The other item I value in this document is the For CE Office Use Only section. Organizations can use this section to summarize all important data relevant to this speaker. It will be helpful for future seminars because you can easily see if there were any issues and what the audience thought of the speaker.

Commercial Interest Agreement (Letter of Agreement)

First, I must mention that a question came up about this document in one of my consulting calls. I emailed CPME for clarification and have yet to hear back. I’ll update if/when I get a response. The question refers to this section (see image). I’m curious why they specified two types of in-kind grant: equipment loans vs. disposable materials/instruments. The only reason I can think is for internal use, to designate how to record the grant for tax purposes: amortized over a period of years for equipment vs one-time use disposables. What do you think?

Everything else in this form is as expected.

Joint Provider Agreement

Joint provider agreements are used if an approved provider is agreeing to provide the educational credits for a conference organized by a non-approved organization. The CPME sample document is helpful in that it breaks down the relevant CPME regulations regarding disclosure of financial relationships, managing funds, commercial support, and more. It is an overview of the deliverables required by the approved provider and why. It is not meant to cover all aspects of the CPME 720 requirements and I recommend the approved provider have some kind of call or training session to ensure the joint provider understands these requirements. I find this form to be pretty straightforward and a great template to work from.

Again, CPME provided these documents as sample templates. They are not meant to replace what you are currently using. Simply compare this to your current document and make adjustments where necessary; or take this template and modify it to suit your needs, adding information and fields where necessary.

I would love to hear your thoughts on these templates so feel free to email me: ann@cloverconferences.com