PA Medical Marijuana Physician Registration Opens

Yesterday, the Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) opened its medical marijuana physician registration for doctors like myself to sign up for certifying patients for medical marijuana. The link to sign up is here and the process is simple. Basic contact and practice location information was all that was needed for the first step to register. The next step, which I’ve discussed in my last post specifically – the 4-hr training course.

Step 2: Physician Training Course

Medical marijuana physician registration also includes a mandated 4-hr training course designed to prepare physicians for recommending allopathic cannabis treatment to their patients. Following submission of basic contact information, physicians are directed to contact the state-approved providers of the training course. At this time there are only two options for taking the training and they are very different from each other. Allow me to explain so other physicians can better determine which to choose. I’ll be completing both most likely.

Option 1: TheAnswerPage.com

The first option available is through TheAnswerPage.com, an online training website that provides educational lessons on specific topics related to medical marijuana and then tests doctors to ensure adequate comprehension. It was nice to see this company listed because I have taken their medical marijuana training materials before so I’m familiar with the content. Not only does this mean I feel very comfortable with my understanding of their presented topics, but it also means I won’t have to take them again since I passed the post-test evaluations just last April. Their material was informative and detailed. I can vouch for the thoroughness. However, training providers were asked to fit the required subjects into just four hours of Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits. The material I completed on their website was equivalent to 22.5 hours of credits so choosing what to include in the 4 hour timeframe will not be an easy task.

Yesterday, I spoke with a nice woman who works for TheAnswerPage.com and it seems that their training course is not yet finalized for online dissemination. If you go to their site to register for the PA training course, you will find an option for New York state’s training but not Pennsylvania’s. I was reassured that it would be available soon.

Option 2: Extra Step Assurance

Our second training provider is a company named Extra Step Assurance, whose website, CannabisExpertise.com, portrays a very different organization or approach to training our doctors. The website is relatively scant, displaying a medical marijuana doctor by the name of Dustin Sulak, DO, the company’s founder.

I called up ESA to see what was up and I was happy to learn that their course was a live in-person training course that would include everything needed to complete training in one session. There will be more details about this to come and I recommend checking back here in the near future for those. I believe that Extra Step’s course will be profound for a number of reasons, foremost is the company’s passion for providing the highest standards of physician education in the field of allopathic marijuana.

What’s Next?

Patients can rely on me to get certified as soon as possible to support medical marijuana card applications by those patients already in a bona fide relationship with me. Those who have not had a chance to meet me in a real-life History & Physical Examination (H&P) can do so quick. Some have already started to send requests for appointments after hearing the training course news yesterday. I will be prioritizing patients who are already established at the clinic but there is plenty of room for new patients to be assessed for medical marijuana too. I will be accepting patients full-force very soon, but for now please hold your desires and insatiable eagerness for a Nature’s Way Medicine appointment until I’ve completed the PA Department of Health marijuana physician registration!

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