New Online Profile Will Help Us Serve You, Our Patients Better

APA is pleased to introduce an easy online method for members to update their member profiles. This will help expand the reach of the Online APA Membership Directory and better serve the needs of our membership. It will increase APA's knowledge of its members, and the new detailed membership information will enhance preparedness in the event of future crises and for other key functions.

The revised online profile update, which was scheduled to go live on May 8, is called the Membership Profile Update and will result in a more effective Online APA Membership Directory. By improving the ability to change contact, biographical, and professional practice information, the profile update will make it easier to contact other members, make dependable patient referrals, and make accurate information more easily accessible.

The information obtained from the Membership Profile Update will be of great benefit to APA in times of national emergencies. In the days following last year's devastating series of hurricanes, APA was inundated with questions through phone calls and e-mails from members seeking information on how to help, where to get help, placing referrals, and other key information. APA united internally and with other organizations to provide this information to those who sought it. The Membership Profile Update will expand APA's ability to harness member resources in the event of a crisis by providing a way to identify members with experience in specific practice settings. For example, if there is a need to find a forensic psychiatrists in Boise, Idaho, APA will have the capability to locate one quickly.

The objective of the profile update is to ensure that the demographic and practice profile data on APA members, including languages spoken and areas of expertise, are available to create a more comprehensive picture of our membership and the variety of professional skills we possess.

The Membership Profile Update comprises four sections: contact information, educational and professional background, current practice and professional activities, and other pertinent information. Members can indicate whether they wish to list part or all of their member profile on the secure, Online APA Membership Directory.

The membership update program can be accessed at<http://memprofupdate.psych.org>.

The Membership Outreach Program, another exciting program offered through APA's Membership Department, was created to provide training and orientation to new district branch executives and staff on all aspects of membership-processing operations. In an effort to improve support offered to the district branches and state associations (DB/SAs), the program provides monthly training to various DB/SAs. This has resulted in the quick and accurate processing of all membership actions and better service to all current and new members.

At the beginning of the year, APA offered members the opportunity to pay membership dues online, which has proved to be a great benefit. Since late January, almost 800 members have taken advantage of the new opportunity. In addition, since the beginning of the year, members have had the ability to pay dues through an automatic monthly payment plan in which a member's credit card is automatically charged a prorated amount of dues on a scheduled monthly basis. Approximately 460 members have opted in to the payment-plan program to date, compared with about 325 at the end of last year when the program was still a pilot test for early career psychiatrist members. These advances have helped reduce the administrative burden on staff members.

Members can try out the new Membership Profile Update in the APA Member Center at this month's annual meeting in Toronto.

APA strives to provide the highest level of service that consistently exceeds the expectations of our members. We continue to look for ways to improve your membership experience and welcome your comments and suggestions.▪