1. A universal external control device for permitting wireless conditional access to functionality of an implantable medical device by a plurality of conditional access users, comprising: circuitry for identifying each of the plural conditional access users, determining functionality associated with the implantable medical device which each of the plural conditional access users has been assigned and restricting access for each of the plural conditional access users to that functionality associated with the implantable medical device based on the determined functionality to which each of the plural conditional access users has been assigned; each of the plural conditional access users is assigned by the circuitry a particular set of conditional access functions from a non-hierarchical framework.