The Medical Education and Research Foundation for the Treatment of Addiction (MERF) must comply with the ACCME Standards for Integrity and Independence of Continuing Education. Everyone in a position to control content for accredited CME must disclose all personal financial relationships within the past 24 months with any entity whose primary business is the production, marketing, selling, reselling, or distribution of healthcare products used on or by patients. Such companies are known as “ineligible companies” as they may not be accredited in the ACCME system.

Examples of ineligible companies include:

• Advertising, marketing, or communication firms whose clients are ineligible companies
• Bio-medical startups that have begun a governmental regulatory approval process
• Compounding pharmacies that manufacture proprietary compounds
• Device manufacturers or distributors
• Diagnostic labs that sell proprietary products
• Growers, distributors, manufacturers or sellers of medical foods and dietary supplements
• Manufacturers of health-related wearable products
• Pharmaceutical companies or distributors
• Pharmacy benefit managers
• Reagent manufacturers or sellers

Note: When an individual has a financial relationship with an ineligible company and the opportunity to affect the accredited continuing education content of an activity that relates to the product or services of that ineligible entity, mitigation is needed to decrease the possibility of commercial bias within an accredited activity.

As an accredited provider of CME, MERF is are required to collect this information from all in control of content, review it and determine which, if any, relationships are relevant, and take steps to mitigate the potential for such relationships to supersede the public interest in the design and delivery of CME/CE activities for the profession.

Disclosure of the financial relationships of spouses/life partners is no longer required. For more information on ineligible companies, visit the ACCME website.