Many of ACEP’s benefits of membership are some of the most obvious and tangible—having a seat on the RUC—the influential body that sets your payment rates, our advocacy work at the state and federal levels, peer-reviewed research in Annals of Emergency Medicine, and of course, your monthly ACEP Now magazine.

But with so many resources included with your membership, there are bound to be some that may have flown under your radar. Here are a few resources that members have repeatedly told us they were surprised and delighted to find as part of their ACEP membership.

Personalized Cards That Say You Exceed the Need for ‘Merit Badge’ Short Courses

ACEP believes that certification by ABEM or AOBEM supersedes the need for so-called “merit badge” short courses, which generally are designed for a broad spectrum of clinicians, including non-emergency physicians, as well as non-physicians.

However, documented completion of these courses is sometimes required for medical staff privileges. For members who are required to have a card, ACEP offers a set of personalized cards online, which attest that the member is currently Board Certified by ABEM or AOBEM and has expertise in:

• Procedural Sedation;
• Cardiac Resuscitation; and
• Trauma; and

Find out more and print out your card annuals at acep.org/expertisecards.

Maintenance of Certification Center Gets Articles So You Don’t Have To

Emergency physicians who want to stay certified must satisfy all four ABEM MOC components:

• Lifelong Learning and Self-Assessment
• Improvement in Medical Practice
• MyEMCert™ Examination with Key Advances
• Professionalism and Professional Standing

ACEP does not set this re-certification process, but we do want to see you succeed. So, ACEP developed the Maintenance of Certification (MOC) Center where you can find free resources to help you get everything you need to pass all the re-certification components.

One MOC Center feature that gets the most praise is the set of Lifelong Learning and Self-Assessment (LLSA) articles—ACEP has curated access to all the articles you need for each year’s reading lists, both for EM and all the subspecialties, so you don’t have to pay for access to all the different journals and publications. There are also summaries to help.

Find out more about the LLSA reading lists, as well as other re-certification support, at acep.org/moccenter.

Discount on JACEP Open Journal Submissions

ACEP members get a 20 percent discount on JACEP Open article publication charges when submitting a manuscript for publication. After you log in to submit, there is a series of payment discount questions, including whether you are an ACEP member. When you answer “yes,” there is a verification behind the scenes and the discount is applied. JACEP Open, an official journal of ACEP, is an international, peer-reviewed open access journal as a companion to Annals of Emergency Medicine. Its focus is on publishing high quality original peer-reviewed research, across the spectrum of basic and clinical research, in an open access format to the world wide community.

Click here to see the author submission guidelines and see if JACEP Open would be a good fit for your manuscript—at a discount.

Learn the Business of EM from the Experts

The business of emergency medicine continues to become an even bigger area of focus for many emergency physicians. But with so many clinical and practice management skills to learn, it’s easy to skim over the administrative, legal, and reimbursement aspects of medicine.

“Practice Essentials of Emergency Medicine” is designed to augment your knowledge of several critical business topics.

Developed for physicians—by physicians—through a collaboration between ACEP and the Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association (EMRA), “Practice Essentials of Emergency Medicine” distills the knowledge of top field experts into tangible, focused modules that learners can work through at their own pace.

This evolving curriculum will grow as learners’ needs—and the health care landscape—change over time. This month, new modules were added, and the robust online curriculum now offers 11 important topic areas.

See what’s available at acep.org/PracticeEssentials.

Have Erroneous Expert Witness Testimony Reviewed

What can you do if you believe an expert witness provided erroneous or egregious testimony against you in a recent liability suit? There are steps you can take through ACEP to have testimony reviewed for accuracy, with erroneous testimony brought to the attention of the membership, or, if the expert witness is an ACEP member, you can consider filing an ethics complaint against the expert for providing such testimony.

ACEP’s Standard of Care Review process can provide an anonymous review and report on potentially egregious expert witness testimony.

The review process is used to publicize examples of expert witness testimony or reports as to the standard of care that does not meet the ACEP criteria for accuracy. Several instances have been reported and reviewed with summaries found online, without mention of any identifying information.

ACEP believes that a physician providing testimony as an expert witness clearly has an ethical responsibility to be objective, truthful, and impartial when evaluating a case based on generally accepted standards of practice. It is unethical to overstate one’s opinions or credentials, to misrepresent maloccurence as malpractice, to bear false testimony, or to use the name of the College as evidence of expertise.

Find out more about the process and the cases, as well as how ethical violation charges can be brought against fellow ACEP members for allegedly providing such egregious expert witness testimony at acep.org/MedicalLegal.

Custom Responses from Expert Staff

ACEP members have exclusive access to expert ACEP staff for personalized answers on topics including reimbursement questions, medical-legal subjects, wellness concerns, clinical matters, and other practice issues.

And one of the most requested areas of assistance for members is around compliance disputes with private payers. ACEP staff can help and identify trends that may lead to more global efforts.

Additionally, ACEP has a dedicated office in Washington, D.C., with several full-time staff members who work closely with federal legislators and regulators who impact your specialty.

Staff are available by calling or emailing the department needed, which can be found at acep.org/contactus.

Free Amazon Business Account Access

A partnership forged during the COVID pandemic, ACEP members can make business purchases as part of a Central Amazon Business account—this is a huge benefit for our members in independent groups, who can take advantage of the cost savings on a variety of medical and office supplies.

Unlike your personal account, this account allows ACEP members to make business purchases of products and take advantage of Amazon’s wide product selection and competitive prices. Amazon also waived their standard referral fees for third-party sellers on products supplied for the COVID-19 response.

Scan the QR code to read the detailed instructions on how to set up this account and what to do if your personal account is tied to your ACEP email on record.