Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan will continue to verify board certification statuses of practitioners in their Blue Cross and Blue Care Network managed care networks.

Effective Jan. 1, 2019, the board certification status of family medicine, internal medicine and pediatric practitioners will be reviewed annually. If their board certification status has lapsed and they are a designated patient centered medical home physician, Blue Cross will grant an exception and allow the practitioner to remain in their Blue Cross and BCN managed care networks. This exception does not apply to new practitioner enrollments. Blue Cross and BCN will continue to require all providers to have board certification upon initial enrollment for affiliation.

"MSMS has put in an incredible amount of work to address MOC requirements, from introducing legislation and educating lawmakers to working with physician specialty societies to advocating with the payers. We commend BCBSM for taking this important first step," said Julie Novak, MSMS CEO. "The work on MOC remains. Physicians are required by Michigan law to complete 150 hours of continuing medical education credits as a condition of relicensure every three years. Today's physicians want to focus on delivering high quality care, not the redundant MOC requirements by the specialty boards."

Family medicine, internal medicine and pediatric practitioners who are found to be non-board certified and are not designated as PCMH physicians will be required to complete maintenance of certification requirements within a two-year time frame. Failure to meet these requirements will result in termination from our managed care networks.