American Association of Diabetes Educators: Did You Know...?

1

Are you familiar with the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE)?


Comprised of more than13,000 members, AADE advocates on behalf of diabetes educators and the patients they serve, and works to ensure the professional growth of our members and promote widespread recognition of the benefits of diabetes education.


The AADE stated mission is to drive practice to promote healthy living through self-management of diabetes and related chronic conditions.

Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE) and Board Certified - Advanced Diabetes Management (BC-ADM) are the credentials required to join AADE. The National Certification Board of Diabetes Educators (NCBDE) is a separate organization from AADE and is the credentialing organization for CDEs.

At this point AADE owns/operates the BC-ADM credential and there are roughly 1000 or fewer BC-ADMs. Federally AADE has legislation on the Hill to get CDEs and BC-ADMs as “credentialed diabetes educators” to be directly reimbursed by Medicare (HR 2787, S 1468). Because Medicare as part of Affordable Care Act (ACA) is pushing towards basing reimbursement for services on healthcare providers (HCPs) being “licensed”, AADE has initiated efforts to have diabetes educators (not specifically CDEs) licensed. Kentucky has passed legislation, other states are working on it.

Here are a few key points from the membership stats that I believe are relevant to you and your publications, etc.

1) AADE has ~13,600 members and is on a nice growth curve

2) The two key HCPs are Registered Nurses (43%), Registered Dieticians (29%)

3) Work environments – not all diabetes educators work directly with people with diabetes. Roughly 50% state they work in hospitals, outpt facilities or physician offices. The other 50% work for pharmaceutical companies, in community health, own businesses, didn’t state, etc.

4) Not all diabetes educators are CDEs – of those who are members of AADE, 62% are CDEs, 34% are neither a CDE or BC-ADM (another credentialing process) – in other words they’re a diabetes educator.

5) Not all CDEs are members of AADE – there are roughly 17,000 CDE who have and maintain this certification. Roughly 5-7K are not members of AADE. It’s very difficult to learn more about this group and where they practice.

2

Personally I have little respect for any of the mainstream diabetes organizations which I feel are behind the times on information, technology and trends, and who disseminate such outdated information driven by other organizations such as the AMA and big pharma, whose interests are not ours. JDRF is the only organization that is, I believe, making an effort to confront the changing recognition of newly diagnosed Type 1's as not all being children, but this also differs by branch. Cynical? Perhaps. But I believe our interests are better served by aspects of the DOC such as this site, and independent organizations such as TCOYD that are run by PWD's, as well as local grassroots organizations we either join or start in our own locales.

3

I'm not sure that it's that they're "behind the times" or that they are not aggressive. I 1) have a big "party" history so I'm not "shy" about meds 2) I like Keith Richards, see#1 3) studied Tae Kwon Do for like 6 years and used to be able to kick targets like 7 or 8 feet in the air (held by MrsAcidRock, standing on a chair...I'm not quite sure how long it would take me to get back in shape to do that now, as my hammies are pretty tight from all the running...) 4) have had decent A1C since 2008 by testing a lot and taking measures to keep things in line.

I saw a CDE before I got my pump, which was right around the time I discovered the DOC. At that time, I was playing fantasy baseball pretty ardently (at least until August) and liked message boards and found that more useful, w/ the checks and balances of people talking about stuff. While I was waiting for my pump, I read TLAP and "Pumping Insulin" and it was like a lightbulb went off in my head and, for whatever reason, I've felt like "I know everything" which, of course, is not true. There's still a lot of good stuff from osmosis. One of my buddie is a CDE and seems sharp but I don't ask her D questions. Occasionally the "issue" comes up but I'm not sure I'd cross the line to toss it out there. I like trying to think through the problems since we all run into most of them much of the time?

4

My CDE Pump Nurse taught me to be self reliant ...I love her and can connect with her by phone /e-mail any time for advise .

5

Let me start off by saying that there are lots of diabetes educators out there doing great things for us. But.

I don't have such a bright view of the AADE, its motivations, strategies and its actions. I think the AADE, like the American Dietetic Association (ADA) acts in the best interests of its members, even when that may not be in the interests of patients. The efforts of both organizations to create exclusive state licensing is of particular concern. The ADA has already obtain a range of laws that it has started to employ against us, most recently in NC it sued a blogger for giving out diabetes diet advice (see Michael Forbes discussion here and here). And this is exactly that the AADE is moving to do.

In March 2011, they were successful getting Kentucky to require anyone "practicing diabetes education" to be licensed by the state. This isn't about requiring reimbursement by medicare and insurance, this is about a monopoly on education.

This is not in the interests of us. This is in fact dangerous to us. I am at risk of being attacked, sued and found in violation of Ky laws. And tuD is in danger too, for part of our entire purpose is to learn from each other. That is education.

6

Wow, Brian, you backed up my instinctive distrust of these organizations with some concrete scary facts! I'm a little puzzled about all these questions about organizations such as the ADA and the AADE and do hope that TuD and the DHF are maintaining their unique niche as an independent diabetes support organization formed by and governed by PWD's without any allegiance to large organizations such as these! And that concern is coming from a long-time member who loves and is grateful for TuD.

Having stuck my neck out even further, I do want to clarify that there are certainly lots of diabetes educators doing wonderful work, at least one of whom is a wonderful member of TuD. Governing bodies? Not so much.

7

?? I'm not "learning" or "educating", I'm hanging out at a diabetes-themed cocktail party...

8

I agree Brian. Low Carb Dietician here is one of the good ones. I heard about that blogger awhile ago and also saw the articles linked (glad to see them posted again because I lost all my bookmarks!). A lot of us would be at risk of being sued if they had their way.

It makes me angry every time I read about a newly diagnosed person walking into a dietician/CDE and being told they need to eat more carbs than they already were. I understand better quality carbs but do not understand more.

It bothers me that the AADE would allow a booth promoting HFCS. That was obviously related to $$$$$$ and not us. When I read about that, they managed to be even lower than they were and I did not think that was even possible.