Louisiana's New Sickle Cell CME for Emergency Physicians

If you practice emergency medicine in Louisiana, there is a small piece of required training you have probably not budgeted for. Under a 2024 change to state law, emergency medicine physicians must complete a board-approved course on the treatment of sickle cell disease — once as an initial course, and then as a short refresher at least every three years. It is one hour at a time, it is specialty-specific, and it is easy to miss because it applies only if you work in emergency medicine. Here is what the law requires, who is covered, and where the hour lands in your annual CME.

What the law requires

The requirement comes from La. R.S. 37:1270(A)(8)(b), added by Act 744 of the 2024 Regular Session and effective August 1, 2024. It directs the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners to require the training, and reads: “The board shall require physicians and physician assistants practicing emergency medicine to complete an initial one-hour continuing education course on the treatment of sickle cell disease. Thereafter, a physician and physician assistant practicing emergency medicine shall complete a one-hour refresher course at regular intervals no less frequently than every three years. The course shall be approved by the board and made available on the board's website.”

In plain terms, there are two distinct pieces:

• An initial one-hour course on the treatment of sickle cell disease — a one-time entry course you complete once.
• A one-hour refresher thereafter, at intervals no less frequent than every three years, for as long as you keep practicing emergency medicine.

Both must be board-approved. The statute specifically requires the board to make the course available on its own website, so the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners (LSBME) — not a private vendor — is the authoritative place to find the approved course.

Who it applies to

The trigger is your practice, not your degree. The requirement applies to physicians practicing emergency medicine in Louisiana. Because the LSBME licenses both allopathic (MD) and osteopathic (DO) physicians under the same statute, it applies to MD and DO emergency physicians alike. (The same provision also names physician assistants practicing emergency medicine.) If you do not practice emergency medicine, this particular requirement does not apply to you.

Where the hour counts

This is the part that trips people up. The sickle cell hours are not extra CME piled on top of your annual total — they count within the continuing medical education Louisiana physicians already complete each year. Louisiana licenses renew annually, and the standard requirement is 20 hours of AMA PRA Category 1 (or AOA Category 1-A) CME per year. The one-hour initial course, and each one-hour refresher, is simply one of those 20 hours that happens to be on the treatment of sickle cell disease. Taking the board's sickle cell course satisfies the specialty requirement and one hour of your annual obligation at the same time — it does not raise your total. The 20-hour annual total and the Category 1 education that satisfies it are set by the board's own rules at LAC 46:XLV.435 and .437, not by the sickle cell statute; read together, they support counting a qualifying sickle cell course within that total rather than on top of it.

Not to be confused with Louisiana's nutrition CME

Sickle cell is not the only recent addition in Louisiana, so it is worth drawing a clear line. A separate 2025 law — Act 463, at La. R.S. 37:1270(A)(8)(c), effective January 1, 2026 — adds one hour of nutrition and metabolic health CME every four years for physicians across a long list of specialties. Emergency medicine is not among the specialties listed for the nutrition requirement; physicians who also practice a listed specialty may have both obligations. See our separate nutrition CME article: Nutrition CME Is Coming to More Physician Licenses. If both happen to apply to you, keep the cadences straight: sickle cell repeats at least every three years, nutrition every four.

What to do now

1. Take the initial course first. If you practice emergency medicine and have not yet done it, complete the board-approved one-hour sickle cell disease treatment course before you settle into the refresher cycle.
2. Schedule the refresher every three years. After the initial course, plan a one-hour refresher at intervals no less frequent than every three years, for as long as you practice emergency medicine.
3. Count it inside your 20 hours. Log the sickle cell hour as one of your 20 annual Louisiana CME credits, not as an add-on — it does not increase your total.
4. Report it in CE Broker. Ensure your completion is recorded in CE Broker, LSBME's required CME tracking system. Check your transcript and submit any missing completion documentation; tracking the course in Med Ed Tracker does not replace this reporting step.
5. Confirm the approved sickle cell course with LSBME. The statute requires the course to be board-approved and available on the board's website (La. R.S. 37:1270(A)(8)(b)), but the board pages we reviewed on September 7, 2026 did not identify a sickle cell offering. Ask LSBME which course satisfies R.S. 37:1270(A)(8)(b) through its contact page.
6. Verify with the board. Requirements and course availability can change, so confirm the current details with the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners before relying on them.

Requirements like this — a one-time course paired with a recurring refresher — are exactly the kind that slip through the cracks. We wrote more about that pattern in One-Time vs. Recurring CME: The Requirements People Forget. Med Ed Tracker keeps both the one-time and the recurring pieces on your radar, and we keep the renewal cycle and CME details for both license types current in our state-by-state guides:

Sources

• La. R.S. 37:1270 — Louisiana State Legislature (subsection (A)(8)(b), sickle cell disease treatment CME)
• Act 744 of the 2024 Regular Session (enrolled act amending R.S. 37:1270)
• LSBME physician rules (LAC 46:XLV) (§§435, 437 CME hours & categories; §439 CE tracking)
• LSBME — Annual Continuing Education Requirements by Practitioner Group (physicians: 20 hours, Category 1 AMA or board-approved)
• LSBME — License Renewals & CE Broker (mandatory CE Broker CME reporting)
• LSBME — Board Orientations & Online Courses (reviewed September 7, 2026; no sickle cell course listed)