Hi--I just listened to your presentation and have a comment and slight disagreement.
The comment is that COPE approval really does add to the cost of CE--you said so yourself.
The disagreement is with your position that, if not for COPE administrators' oversight bad quality CE would result. I just haven't found that to be the case when I have attended CE which wasn't COPE approved over the years. Most recently, I attended an hour of CE at a local retinal specialists' clinic. As always, it was great! I think the people who put themselves out to offer optometrists CE have good intentions and are trying to improve the profession. I could say a lot more about this, because I have given it a lot of thought because I am currently in a bit of a battle with my state board, who also believe non-COPE CE is equivalent to bad CE--or at least one of the board members has stated this. I am just not buying it!
Of course, your position in providing CE for people in all states must actually have a way to get it approved without presenting it to each state. But logistics should be your reason, not that, without COPE, your lazy, no-good presenters would just try to get by with a garbage presentation. That's just an inaccurate opinion not justified by the reality of the situation.