Indiana is first state to protect medical specialty designations
On the final day of the 2022 legislative session, Senate Enrolled Act (SEA) 239 was passed by state lawmakers. Authored by Sen. Kevin Boehnlein (R-Greenville) and Sen. Liz Brown (R-Fort Wayne), the bill calls for disciplinary action against a professional if their advertising includes deceptive or misleading information or does not prominently state their profession or license. Its passage followed a significant grassroots effort on the part of Indiana physicians and medical societies.

Since then, Gov. Eric Holcomb officially signed the bill into law.

“We applaud the bill’s authors for their leadership, standing up for patient safety and promoting greater transparency so Hoosiers can better understand who is providing their care,” said ISMA President Elizabeth Struble, MD, who testified in support of the bill.

In 2020, an independent survey of consumers found that 1 in 4 Hoosiers was not confident they knew which medical professional they had seen in the past few years. The Indiana Physician Coalition, an alliance of 13 statewide medical associations and specialty societies, believes the confusion is caused by the “alphabet soup” of abbreviations that are often used to identify members of the health care team: MD, DO, APRN, NP, CRNA, PA, DNP, etc. 

To clear up this confusion, a new law was needed to require identification based on license type, such as physician, nurse practitioner, nurse anesthetist, physician assistant and others that are more recognizable by name.

The proposed bill would have required that ID badges worn in clinical settings include license type; however, that provision did not advance. 

Specialty designations protected
With the passage of SEA 239, Indiana becomes the first and only state to restrict the use of certain medical specialty designations to physician specialists, including the terms anesthesiologist, cardiologist, dermatologist, family practice physician, ophthalmologist, orthopedist, psychiatrist, surgeon, etc. 

“Health care professionals at every level should be proud of their profession and want to help patients make an informed choice when seeking out options for treatment,” said Carrie Davis, MD, a member of the ISMA Commission on Legislation who also testified in support. “Now, a patient will be able to seek that treatment with confidence knowing they can trust the education, training and license of the health care expert they’ve chosen to see.”

Health care professionals will have until January 2023 to comply with the advertising and marketing provisions. ISMA might seek further improvements to the law in future legislative sessions. For now, however, this is a significant victory for patients and physicians.

“We owe our thanks to members of the ISMA and our partners in the Indiana Physician Coalition for answering our calls to action,” said John Ruckelshaus, ISMA vice president of government affairs. “More than 3,100 messages were sent by advocates to state senators and representatives on this issue alone.
 
“It cannot be overstated how impactful this level of grassroots advocacy was on keeping the legislation alive throughout the process until it ultimately passed the General Assembly.”