The rural college’s new CPD portal costs just $300 a year – if you join in the next two months.
Removing the medical college monopoly on continuing professional development administration, once feted by this very publication as “CPDageddon”, has been resoundingly underwhelming – until now.
ACRRM has arrived on the scene with a new offering for GPs and rural generalists that could undercut its competitors.
College president Dr Dan Halliday told The Medical Republic the aim was to capture early-career doctors who are not current ACRRM members.
“Some people might call them the lost tribe, in terms of the early career medical officers that are in the hospital settings [but not on a training pathway],” he said.
“There are also those that are trying to get some exposure to ACRRM and its services before committing to a specialty training pathway.”
From January 2024, all doctors will have to register with a CPD home – that is, an organisation accredited by the Australian Medical Council to manage and record CPD activities.
All medical colleges have been approved by the AMC as CPD homes, but technically third-party organisations can also now apply.
In theory, fellowed doctors could cut ties with their medical college completely, paying a potentially far cheaper rate for CPD recording and reporting activities at one of the newly created third-party CPD homes.
In practice, though, just one non-college organisation has passed AMC accreditation – the AMA WA-branch-owned DoctorPortal Learning, trading simply as CPD Home.
AMA members can access the service for about $440 a year, while non-members pay $880.
Considering that the Royal Australasian College of Physicians charges non-members $2000 for CPD participation and non-members of RANZCOG pay around $750 per year for its CPD program – not including a one-off CPD application fee of $425 – the DoctorPortal Learning offer is competitive.
ACRRM’s new CPD home offering, though, comes in at just $300 for the first year.
Named CPD Home Essential, it is a separate program to the one offered through ACRRM membership, which is called CPD Home Classic.
The discounted price is only available to people who sign up before the end of August, with the college billing it as an “introductory first year rate”.
In exchange for their money, CPD Home Essential users will have access to ACRRM’s self-reporting CPD portal, as well as its online CPD logbook, and can have mandatory reporting completed on their behalf.
“This is a non-member opportunity, but it’s also an opportunity for ACRRM to invite those out there who are interested in engaging with a focused provider, to open [the door] to a range of opportunities in the rural practice space,” Dr Halliday said.
“And we’re hoping that that opens up a number of opportunities for us to actually work with people who might want to come here [as members].”
According to Dr Halliday, the college is also working through the process of deciding if CPD Home Classic can be offered to non-members as a CPD Home.
“But we did feel that there was this opportunity [right now] for us to open up [CPD Home Essential], we were ready to go, it’s gone through the testing and we felt that coming into the new financial year was the right time,” he said.
ACRRM’s yearly membership fee comes in at $1310.
