Summer 2000

NCRA, National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators and the US Senate's Special Committee on Aging. The representative from the FTC discussed the forthcoming decision on expanding the Funeral Rule* to cover providers other than funeral homes (due out later this year) and the hearings recently held by Senator Grassley' s Committee. For more information please contact Jerri Robinson, President of NCRA at 502-696-5395 or write to 1024 Capital Center Drive, Suite 200, Frankfort, KY 40601

*What is the Funeral Rule?
The Federal Trade Commission's "Funeral Rule" requires, among other things, that funeral homes provide a general price list to consumers as soon as a discussion turns to funeral goods, funeral services, funeral prices or the overall type of funeral arrangements. This rule also provides that funeral directors cannot refuse to accept a casket from a third party provider and that they may not charge a casket handling fee when they do not provide the casket.

In the past, all caskets were customarily sold by funeral directors. However, today many cemeteries offer caskets and other funeral merchandise and services (such as vaults and opening and closing costs).In addition, there are now there are many store front casket retailers and caskets are available for purchase on the internet. These sellers are not currently covered by the Funeral Rule. Hearings were held last year to determine whether or not this rule should be expanded to cover ALL sellers of funeral services and merchadise.

of a consultant who has particular knowledge of distance education delivery to measure a program's compliance with the standards and because those services are available through ARELLO's certification program, many jurisdictions are preparing to require that distance education courses have first attained ARELLO certification before applying for approval from their regulatory body.

Regulators of all types of industries are realizing that they lack the budget and expertise to review and accurately assess the new wave of educational products. By pointing to the international standards maintained by ARELLO, and even utilizing the certification service,  those charged with licensure, enforcement and regulation are finding that they can better serve the public without increasing their work load.

For those who are interested in the question of distance education, publications on both ARELLO's standards and the certification program are available through ARELLO and may be ordered by accessing www.arello.net or by calling Joe McClary at ARELLO at (334) 260-2902.

New in our Library

Proceedings of the Working Meeting of the Federal Credentialing Program, Albuquerque, NM,1999.

The Federal Credentialing Program has evolved through a series of demonstration 

projects into a standardized credentialing base for physicians and dentists in federal service. The Albuquerque meeting was one of the initiatives to expand the software to accommodate all federal departments and ultimately all federal licensed, registered or certified healthcare professionals.

The National Board of Chiropractic Examiners has issued the Job Analysis of Chiropractic 2000 that provides a methodical survey of the chiropractic profession as it is practiced in the United States. The new report provides comparisons of the current data with the results of the last report issued in 1993. A summary of the report may be viewed at http://www.nbce.org/nbce

Innovative Simulations for Assessing Professional Competence: From Paper-and- Pencil to Virtual Reality, Tekian et.al. ,Chicago, Il, 1999

A series of essays of interest to "(A)nyone involved in assessing professional competence…." that concludes "that simulation approaches yield more useful data to all concerned than do more traditional methods of assessing problem-solving, interpersonal, technical and communication skills."

Medical Council of Canada 1999 Annual Report. The annual report provides an overview of the activities of the Council in 1999 in order to facilitate portability and reciprocity of medical licenses. The Medical Council of Canada's web site is accessible at http://www.mcc.ca