Quick Answers
Get quick answers to common questions about data reporting.
For information about accreditation standards, see Key Concepts and Definitions on each Standard page.
Topics
Activity Data
There are four activity statuses: Draft, Active, Ready to Close, and Closed. Below is a description of the data fields required for each activity status:
DRAFT
Title
Format
Start date
End date
ACTIVE
Delivery method (if applies)
Location (if applies)
City, State, Country (if in person)
AMA PRA Category 1™ amount
CME Finder Yes/No selection
If CME Finder = Yes
Fee
Registration
Activity URL
Activity Description
Providership (Direct/Joint)
End date not in the past
READY TO CLOSE
Same fields as Active
End date in the past
CLOSED
Everything required for Ready to Close
If Joint Providership, at least 1 joint provider name
At least 1 Outcome Measure
Commercial Support Yes/No
If Commercial Support = Yes, at least 1 support source, and for each source:
Monetary or In-Kind selection
If Monetary, support amount
Total Physician Learner count (can enter a “0” if no learners in this category)
Total Other Learner count (can enter a “0” if no learners in this category)
If activity was registered for MOC/CC, at least one board selected, attestation complete, and for each board:
At least one practice area
At least one credit type
MOC credit amount
Content area (if applicable)
Internal ID (if applicable)
Fee
Registration
Activity URL
MOC credit claim date
There are four activity statuses: draft, active, ready to close, and closed. This guide explains how activities flow in PARS and what information is required for each status.
You can click on the name of any of these activity formats for a definition and additional information on how to report learners:
Participating certifying boards and ACCME share the expectation that accredited providers evaluate the impact of their activities on learners’ knowledge, strategies/skills, performance, and/or patient outcomes (Analyzes Change).
The ACCME has a list of example evaluation methods available that would meet MOC requirements for the boards. This list is not a complete list, but intended to show examples of evaluations a provider could choose to implement.
The provider must include an evaluation component that measures learners’ change. Evaluation refers to a question or series of questions or a reflective task that is designed to assess the activity’s goals and purpose. The evaluation should sufficiently address the goals so that a reasonable determination can be made about the learners understanding of the material and the effectiveness of the educational activity.
The accredited provider may choose to evaluate the impact of the activity at the session level or at the activity level. As well, the provider does not need to be limited to a single method of evaluation per activity. Combinations of approaches to evaluation may produce rich information about learner change.
The accredited provider must be able to demonstrate that the learner has participated in/completed the evaluation for the educational activity in order to submit the learner’s participation completion information for the activity. Anonymous learner collection methods, such as an audience response system that is not tied to an individual would not be acceptable as there is no way to demonstrate individual learner completion.
In the case that an activity is selected for review the ACCME will send explicit instructions on what materials will need to be provided and any relevant timelines. ABIM and ABP have sample abstract documents available in the resources section of the CME for MOC webpage. It’s important to note that the ACCME and the boards expect that these reviews are formative and not punitive.
The Planning and Audit guide (Appendix B of the CME for MOC Program Guide) can be a helpful tool in order to determine whether your organization is meeting board requirements. The ACCME has also developed a planning worksheet based off this guide which can help providers ensure that they are taking steps to meet requirements. Please note that these guides can be used in internal planning but are not formal audit documents.
The Internal ID is a unique code or identifier that your organization creates. It is used in combination with the data in the Activity Type and Activity Date fields to uniquely identify your activity records. Providers should not use their assigned seven-digit provider ID number as an Internal ID, since this number would be the same for all activities you provide.
The Internal ID field is optional, except in the following cases:
When your organization offers multiple activities in the same format on the same date
When entering activities via batch upload or web services
When the activity offers MOC
The ACCME has created a list of example evaluation methods providers could choose to use that would meet MOC requirements for the boards. This document contains several different case examples of how reflective statements could be integrated into an activity.
No. The ACCME accredits organizations that produce CME activities. The accreditation process includes the review of CME activities for the demonstration of compliance with the ACCME’s requirements. For more information, see ACCME’s description of the accreditation process for first-time applicants.
If you need to delete an activity from PARS, you may do so by going to your Activity Summary screen. From there you can check the box next to each activity you want to delete and then choose the Delete Activities option at the bottom of the page. You can also delete activities individually by hovering over the activity card and selecting the Delete option. You will receive a pop-up message asking you to confirm whether you want to delete the selected activities. You can also delete activities using the batch and web service methods.
Note that you cannot delete activities with a status of Closed, or for which you have entered individual learner completion data.
Feedback can be provided back to the learner in several ways. Evaluation results (quiz score, reflective statement review, etc.) can be used as feedback. This is best achieved by correcting misconceptions and incorrect responses, showing learners the correct or optimal response, and providing an explanation as to why the correct answer is the best. This can be done live during the activity, or asynchronously. During a live activity, a case discussion where faculty share with learners the appropriateness of the decisions made and the appropriateness of the case outcome is considered acceptable feedback to participants.
The evaluation guide contains different feedback examples that could be provided to learners.
You are required to complete the following fields regarding commercial support at the individual activity level.
- Commercial Support Received? Indicate whether commercial support was received for this activity by clicking “Yes” or “No”. You should check “Yes” for this question if support was received regardless of whether it was paid directly to your organization, as the Accredited Provider, or to a joint provider
- Support Source: Complete this field for each commercial supporter for your activity. Select a name from the drop-down box, or, if the commercial supporter for your activity does not appear in the drop-down, type the supporter’s name into the text field.
- Monetary Support Received: Use this field to indicate the amount of monetary support received from each commercial supporter.
- In-kind Support Received: Use this field to indicate the nature of any in-kind support received from each commercial supporter.
Enduring materials that are offered over the course of multiple calendar years should be reported only once in PARS with a start and end date spanning up to 3 years. Learner counts for enduring activities should be updated in PARS through 12/31 by the 3/31 annual reporting deadline for each year they are active.
For example, if a provider offers an enduring material that was launched on July 1, 2023, and remains available through December 2024 they should:
- Report one activity in PARS with a start date of 07/01/2023 and an end date of 12/31/2024.
- Report the number of learners through 12/31/2023 as a part of annual reporting for 2023 and then update those learner counts to indicate the cumulative number of learners through 12/31/2024 as a part of annual reporting for 2024.
- If the activity received monetary commercial support, report the amount of support received in the year in which it was received.
Other activity formats that span more than one calendar year should be entered once for each 12-month period and closed at the end of that period. If the activity will continue beyond a 12-month period, it should be entered again as a separate activity in PARS. For each 12-month period that the activity was provided, report the number of learners (physicians and/or other learners) who participated, as well as the income related to the activity.
In-kind support is reported for each individual activity. When reporting your activity in PARS, report any in-kind (non-monetary) commercial support received for an activity by indicating “in-kind” support and listing the support source.
In activities that blend in-person and virtual interaction, the activity format will depend on whether learners participate in real-time or can access the activity at any time. If learners participate in real-time, whether in person, virtually, or both, report this as a single activity. If learners do not need to participate in real-time and can access the activity whenever they choose, this should be reported as an enduring material.
More details about activity types in PARS can be found in this FAQ.
If your organization is converting an in-person activity to a virtual format, it should be appropriately identified in PARS as such. In general, if you are changing a single live, in-person CME course to a live, virtual format, that activity should be categorized instead as a “live-streamed” live course.
A regularly scheduled series (RSS) is a series of multiple, ongoing sessions, primarily planned by and presented to the organization’s professional staff. This activity format is most often used by hospitals and health systems for repeated, ongoing educational sessions.
Yes. You can make enduring materials available for as short or as long a period as you choose, as long as the enduring materials continue to meet applicable ACCME requirements. The ACCME requires enduring CME materials to be reviewed (and updated, if necessary) at least once every three years.
For purposes of reporting activity data in PARS/JA-PARS, ACCME asks accredited providers to report the aggregate number of physician learner interactions and other learner interactions for each activity. This helps us calculate and report out the reach and engagement in accredited CME/CE.
A learner interaction represents an instance of participation in the activity. Participation means the learner has completed some or all of an activity. How much and to what extent is determined by the accredited provider.
When calculating the total learner interactions, there is no requirement that the learner claim or earn credit to be counted as a participant. There is also no requirement for providers to obtain evaluation data from a learner to be counted as a participant.
For providers who report individual learner credit, because not all learners claim credit for their participation, and/or engage in required evaluation mechanisms the ACCME does not expect the number of aggregate learner interactions to match the number of individuals for which learner credit was reported.
Learner Data
Learner credit data, also known as learner completion data or individual credit data, are the records of CME and/or Maintenance of Certification (MOC/CC) credits earned by your physician learners through the completion of an accredited CME activity. Only accredited CME providers are able to upload learner credit data into ACCME’s Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS). For your physician learners, this data includes:
- First and last name
- State medical license ID and/or certifying board ID
- Month and day of birth
Published Date
January 16, 2023
Reporting learner credit data in ACCME’s Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS) is not required. It is an opportunity that has been made available through PARS for all accredited providers so that we can move the system forward to a digitized approach to reporting and managing learner credit data. By entering learner credit data in PARS, you can:
- Decrease physicians’ reporting burden, giving them more time to focus on patient care.
- Reduce your work responding to queries and certificate requests from physicians; PARS can become your system of record for physician credit data, replacing the need to issue paper or e-certificates following completion of activities.
- Reinforce the value of your activities to learners and other stakeholders.
- Support regulatory authorities by providing easier access to verified CME and Maintenance of Certification/Continuous Certification (MOC/CC) credit data. Learner credit data entered in PARS will be made available to the participating state medical licensing boards and certifying boards in collaboration with the ACCME, eliminating the need for physicians to track and submit their credits to these boards manually. For all state licensing boards, physician learners are able to create profiles in CME Passport to view and transmit an official transcript of the CME and MOC/CC credit that has been reported on their behalf.
Published Date
January 16, 2023
By entering learner credit data in PARS, you can:
- Decrease physicians’ reporting burden, giving them more time to focus on patient care.
- Reduce your work responding to queries and certificate requests from physicians; PARS can become your system of record for physician credit data, replacing the need to issue paper or e-certificates following completion of activities.
- Reinforce the value of your activities to learners and other stakeholders.
- Support regulatory authorities by providing easier access to verified CME and Maintenance of Certification/Continuous Certification (MOC/CC) credit data. Learner credit data entered in PARS will be made available to the participating state medical licensing boards and certifying boards in collaboration with the ACCME, eliminating the need for physicians to track and submit their credits to these boards manually. For all state licensing boards, physician learners are able to create profiles in CME Passport to view and transmit an official transcript of the CME and MOC/CC credit that has been reported on their behalf.
Hear more from ACCME’s CEO and President, Graham McMahon, MD, MMSc, on the value of entering learner credit data in PARS here.
Published Date
January 16, 2023
We understand that reporting learner credit data may be a new process for you, and we’re here to help! We hosted a series of webinars to demonstrate how to report learner credit data in ACCME’s Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS) and answer questions about the process. View a recording of the webinar here.
Published Date
January 16, 2023
To delete a learner record through the web interface, you will have to first make sure that the original record has fully processed with an Accepted response. You cannot delete a record with a “Submitted” status. You can hover over the learner’s name to select it for deletion or use the checkmarks next to as many learners as needed to bulk delete.
This delete may take up to a few days to fully process with the board, and you will know when it has successfully deleted when the learner record no longer appears in PARS.
You can also delete learners through the batch upload methods or web services. To do this you would indicate a record action of “Delete” in your upload.
Last Revised
November 16, 2021
PARS will send a rejection report when learners are rejected by the board. The email will contain an error message explaining what caused the rejection (for example the learner has already earned the maximum amount of points for the activity). Providers can also see the reason for rejection by hovering over the Rejected status in the PARS interface.
Certain boards (ABA and ABP) will check and enforce granting credit to a diplomate for each unique activity (ACCME Activity ID) once per day (date completed). These implementations are in place to reduce the incidence of accidental duplicate MOC credit reported to the boards with a few exceptions:
- For ABP: This excludes credit for Internet Searching and Learning and Journal-based CME activities. Learners can be reported more than once with the same completion date for this activity type.
- For ABA: If the activity offers both CME and CME which counts for Patient Safety, a max of two participation records for the unique activity be allow diplomate per day – one record including the amount of CME + Patient Safety earned, and (if applicable) one record including the remainder of the CME earned. See the tutorial above for more information regarding multi-credit type reporting.
Yes. Learners can be reported for their engagement in an activity up to the maximum amount available. Learners can be reported in quarter-hour increments (.25) and can be reported within the same activity multiple times depending how/when the credit is earned.
The American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) and American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA) only allow one completion date per activity per learner, so if you need to report a learner multiple times for one of these boards you will need to make sure the completion date is not the same for each of these instances.
You should report learners for MOC credit as they engage in the RSS and complete any evaluation/participation requirements in order to earn MOC credit. You should not wait until the end of the year to report the number of credits earned for an RSS.
In PARS, you can report the completion date as the date of the session attended and award the number of points earned for the session.
Last Revised
November 16, 2021
A participation threshold, or passing standard, clearly communicates to the learner exactly what needs to be done in order to earn MOC credit. This can be set according to the intent of the evaluation and is determined by the provider.
Examples:
- A provider evaluates learners by using case discussions as part of their hospital’s grand rounds. In order to earn MOC credit for the activity, the learners must actively engage in the conversation, and participation is verified by a group leader or observer. The person facilitating this can then attest that the learners have met the participation requirements needed to earn MOC credit.
- If a provider uses a post-test as part of evaluation, the activity planners and/or faculty can determine the minimum number of items that the learners would need to answer correctly to demonstrate that they have adequately absorbed the content of the activity.
When you submit participant completion data, PARS will verify the participant’s information against simple validation rules, and if verified, will transmit the record to the certifying board(s) for further validation. After this has processed, the participant record status will change to “accepted” or “rejected” in PARS. This process typically takes about 24 hours to complete, however this timing can vary. If a learner record is rejected an email notification will be sent to the primary contact listed for your organization, and the reason for rejection will appear in PARS. If you need to change your organization’s primary contact, this can be done by going to your organization’s profile and selecting the “contacts” tab.
If the participant data submitted via PARS does not match the information in a diplomate’s board record, PARS will not be able to confirm the participant’s identity and will not accept the completion record. The provider will be notified immediately via a validation error message in the PARS interface or in the batch upload report, depending on what data submission method is being used. The provider will subsequently need to reach out to the learner to obtain the correct information and re-enter the corrected data for it to be successfully submitted to the certifying board.
Maintenance of Certification (MOC)
Yes, training on broad, cross-specialty topics can be registered for MOC as demonstrated by the professional practice gap(s) and content of the activity and if the provider is meeting all requirements listed in the program guide. Here are some examples:
- Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS)
- Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS)
- Clinician Burnout
- Electronic Health Records (EHR)
- Ethics/Professionalist
- Grand Rounds, Tumor Boards, Morbidity and Mortality
- Opioid Education
- Overall Wellness
- Patient Safety
- QI Basics
- Shared Decision-making
- Team-Based Care
These types of activities can also be registered for multiple boards as this content will typically be relevant for multiple specialties.
Yes, activities which are relevant to multiple specialties can be registered for more than one board. Certain activities may be relevant to any specialty.
Yes, you may offer learners the opportunity to earn different types of credits for the same activity as long as the activity meets the different requirements for each available credit type. To determine what specific credit combinations learners may earn for each board and their requirements, please refer to the CME for MOC Program Guide.
The ACCME has created a CME for MOC program guide which details the requirements for offering MOC as part of your organization’s educational program.
This program guide contains an activity planning guide which goes through the requirements step by step to assist you in meeting these criteria when planning and implementing MOC activities. This guide is also available as a stand-alone document for providers to use when planning their CME activities as offering MOC.
Each board has a statement that providers should use in order to inform learners that your activity offers MOC for a specific board (or boards). These statements should be provided to learners on any advertising materials and programs prior to the activity. In general, these statements require that you inform your learners for which board(s) the activity is registered, how many credits they can earn, and for which credit types. Several boards also have CME for MOC badges available for use in your advertisements, however this is optional.
Once an activity is registered in PARS for MOC, the activity will appear in CME Passport for physicians to search and find out more information.
Last Revised
November 16, 2021
Accredited CME providers use PARS to enter and register CME activities that count for MOC. A provider can use PARS to enter in CME activities, and complete a few additional steps in order to register an activity for MOC.
The ACCME has created a step-by-step tutorial which outlines this process in PARS.
Last Revised
November 16, 2021
Accredited providers should report multi-session regularly scheduled series (RSS) as a single activity in PARS, regardless of whether the entire series offers MOC or not. You should not enter individual sessions of the series as separate activity instances in PARS. When completing the fields for MOC in PARS, provide the maximum number of MOC points that are available to the participants for the entire series.
If not all sessions in an RSS offer MOC, report the maximum number of MOC points for the sessions that do meet MOC requirements. For example, if the RSS meets for 1 hour monthly (12 hours total for the year), but only 5 of the sessions offer MOC, you would report 12 hours of instruction/CME for the activity but enter 5 points in the data field asking for the number of MOC points.
Some boards accept AMA credit towards their certification requirements. For these boards the field to enter MOC credit will default to the amount of CME.
Each provider must have systems, resources, and processes in place to:
Collect and report the following data:
- Learner’s certifying board ID number
- First name
- Last name
- Month and day of the date of birth (mm/dd)
- Activity completion date
- Credit type(s) and amount of credit earned
Obtain permission from the learner to share the credit information with their board via ACCME PARS.
Transmit the credit information to ACCME on behalf of the learner in a timely manner. It is the ACCME and the certifying board’s expectation that learners be entered into the system no more than 30 days after the physician has completed the evaluation requirements to earn MOC.
Learner credit data is reported through PARS and can be entered into the system in a variety of ways.
- Entering learners manually in the PARS interface.
- Using the Excel, or XML batch upload method.
- Reporting Learners via ACCME’s web service.
The ACCME has created a step-by-step tutorial that goes into detail for each of these methods.
Last Revised
November 16, 2021
Learning from teaching activities are personal learning projects designed and implemented by the learner with facilitation from the accredited provider. This type of activity recognizes the learning that occurs as physicians prepare to teach. Learning from teaching represents a range of activities in which an accredited provider can facilitate practice-based learning and improvement – where the ‘practice’ could be the person’s professional “teaching practice” or “clinical practice” or “research practice.”
Examples of learning from teaching activities:
- To prepare for teaching a skills workshop at a surgical specialty society meeting, physician faculty find that they need to learn how to operate a new laparoscopic device that will be used during the workshop. The specialty society, as an accredited provider, facilitates their training on the new device as a learning from teaching activity for the faculty prior to their teaching engagement.
- An accredited provider makes available a learning from teaching activity for new faculty in the form of “individualized learning projects.” In the activity, new faculty assess what knowledge and skills they need to teach more effectively, and then the provider makes available training and feedback to improve the new faculty members’ teaching skills. This includes one-to-one mentorship and training with educational experts.
When you report learning from teaching in PARS, aggregate your data for learning from teaching for all learners into one activity. The number of learners should equal the number of individuals who participated in this activity. The amount of credit may be reported as the maximum amount of credit a learner could earn for a learning from teaching activity.
For example, a provider created a learning from teaching activity for 10 learners. The maximum number of credits a learner could earn over the 12-month period was 10 credits. In PARS, the provider would report this as a learning from teaching activity with 10 learners and 10 credits.
Each learning from teaching activity should be reported for a maximum of a 12-month period. If this activity is available for longer than 12 months, it should be reported as a separate activity each year
Providers are encouraged to register their activities for MOC as far in advance of the activity start date as possible. This allows learners to find the activity on CME Passport. This also allows providers to enter participant data quickly after the event occurs.
Providers should not wait until the end of the year to report activities registered for MOC; they should enter them into PARS as they are planned prior to advertising these activities as offering MOC to their physician learners.
Users can report learners for different credit amounts within a single record for all entry types.
In this example the learner has earned 8 Lifelong Learning credit, 5 of which count towards Patient Safety requirements. The same can be done via Excel batch upload, XML, and web service transactions.
Last Revised
January 16, 2023
No, providers should report any multi-session annual meeting as a single CME activity in PARS. If registering an activity for MOC, you may designate the maximum amount of MOC points offered to reflect only the sessions that offer MOC.
For example, if your annual meeting includes 20 1-hour sessions, but only 5 sessions during that meeting offer MOC, then you should enter 5 points in the data field asking for the number of MOC points.
Some boards accept CME credit towards their certification requirements. For these boards the field to enter MOC credit will default to the amount of CME.
Yes. A provider can select multiple practice areas if the activity covers more than one focused topic. A list of all practice areas can be found in the CME for MOC Program Guide within each board’s section.
These practice areas will appear in CME Passport when the learners search on specific topics.
Last Revised
November 16, 2021
We have collaborated with American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) certifying boards to simplify and align the Maintenance of Certification (MOC) process to better meet the needs of physicians and educators. MOC is also referred to as Continuing Certification or Continuous Certification. Although it may be called different names by different boards, the intent is the same. These collaborations increase the number and diversity of accredited CME activities that meet the requirements for MOC and streamline the process for accredited CME providers and physicians.
CME providers do not need to submit MOC applications for approval to the certifying boards that are collaborating with the ACCME. Instead, accredited CME providers use PARS to register activities for these programs using a trust and verify framework. As part of this registration process, providers attest to compliance with certifying board requirements, agree to collect the required individual learner completion data and report it via PARS, agree to abide by certifying board/ACCME requirements for use of the data, agree to allow ACCME to publish data about the activity on ACCME’s website, and agree to comply with requests for information about the activity if the activity is selected for review by the ACCME.
If you are new to MOC, you may want to first read the CME for MOC beginner’s guide, as this goes over the collaboration at a high level.
A provider must first have a mechanism in place to obtain permission from the learner to share the information with the ACCME so that it can be transmitted to their certifying board.
You will need to collect the following information from each board-certified physician claiming MOC in order to report their participant completion data in PARS:
- Date of completion
- Learner’s certifying board ID (optional for ABS)
- First name
- Last name
- Date of birth (month/day only)
This information is used to ensure that the data is accurate and valid, and associated with the correct board-certified physician when it is being reported to the board.
In addition to this collected information, you will need to indicate which activity the learner completed, along with the credit type(s) and how many MOC points were earned.
There are four options available to register a CME activity for MOC in PARS:
- Entering the activity manually in the PARS interface and completing additional fields required to register the activity for MOC.
- Using the Excel batch activity upload method, including the certifying board’s MOC registration data in the file.
- Using the XML batch activity upload method, including the certifying board’s MOC registration data in the file.
- Registering activities via ACCME’s web service, including the certifying board’s MOC registration data in the XML sent.
You cannot batch upload the MOC registration information for activities using the tab-delimited batch upload option. However, if you enter the general information for activities required by PARS via tab-delimited batch upload, the certifying board’s MOC registration fields can then be completed manually in PARS for any activity that you wish to register for MOC.
For more information see Technical Information for Submitting Data via Batch Upload or Web Services.
Last Revised
November 16, 2021
We encourage CME providers to submit participant data as soon as possible after the activity or evaluation component has been completed, so that points earned will reflect in the physician’s records. Accredited providers are asked to submit learner completion data to PARS within 30 days of the learner’s completion of the activity/evaluation.
Please note: Many board-certified physicians need to complete their MOC activities by December 31 in order for the MOC points to count toward any MOC requirements that are due by the end of the year. To that end, providers should report participant completion data by December 31 to ensure that the MOC points count towards this year’s requirements.
ABP diplomates must meet yearly reporting requirements related to completion of activities by December 1. Activities completed after December 1 must have completions entered immediately into PARS.
For activities that span multiple years (such as enduring materials), learner data should be reported in the reporting year the learner participated. Activities should be entered into PARS for each year they are active, and learners reported under the corresponding ACCME Activity ID.
PARS will be open to accept late learner completion data through March 31 two years after the reporting year, after which time that reporting year will be closed for learner completion data. This means that any 2020 learner completion can be entered into PARS for 2020 activities until March 31, 2022. 2021 completions can be entered until March 31, 2023, etc. If you have a learner completion that can no longer be accepted into PARS, please contact the specialty board directly to see if they will accept the credit on their end. Contact information for the boards can be found in the CME for MOC Program Guide in each board’s section.
Learner completion should still be reported in a timely manner after the learner has engaged in the activity, however PARS allows late reporting for exceptions due to technical error or issues with the learner claiming credit.
Your learners should be able to provide you with their certifying board ID number. If they do not know their ID, they can reach out to their specific certifying board to obtain it. Some of the boards have public look-up tools which CME providers can use to find this information as well.
- American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA) diplomates have an eight-digit board ID that begin with the number three (for example, 3555-5555). The board ID is not the same number that is printed on diplomates’ certificates. Diplomates can locate their ID number by logging into their personal ABA portal account.
- American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) diplomates have a board ID number that can be up to six digits. This number is printed on diplomates’ certificates. ABIM diplomates can find their board ID by logging into their ABIM Physician Portal or by searching here.
- American Board of Ophthalmology (ABO) diplomates have a board ID number that can be up to five digits. This number is not printed on diplomates’ certificates. Diplomates can locate their ID number by logging into their personal MOC Status Page.
- American Board of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery (ABOHNS) diplomates have a board ID number that can be up to five digits. ABOHNS diplomates can find their board ID by searching here.
- American Board of Pathology (ABPath) diplomates have an ID number that consists of numbers only with no leading zeros. Diplomates can locate their ID number by logging into their personal account in ABPath’s online platform.
- American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) diplomates have a board ID number that can be up to seven digits. ABP diplomates can find their board ID by searching here.
- American Board of Surgery (ABS) diplomates can locate their board ID by logging into their ABS portal. The ABS ID is optional for learner reporting, but may facilitate a faster learner match.
These resources are outlined in the CME for MOC Program Guide under each board’s section.
Once learner participation has been reported for a MOC activity, you will not be able to delete it. PARS also restricts certain changes from being made after learner participation has been reported.
If you need assistance making changes to your MOC activity, please contact the ACCME at info@accme.org.
Annual Reporting
The Program Summary is a summary of financial resources available to your Program of CME/CE. Report data for the most recent 12-month period you have available. If your organization is the accredited provider for a jointly provided activity, you are required to report the same financial data that you do for directly provided activities, even if the joint provider was the recipient of the funds.
Accredited providers must provide the following information on the Program Summary:
- Total advertising and exhibit income received in support of your Program. Advertising and exhibits are opportunities for promotion (like advertising space, exhibit booths, etc.) and not continuing medical education. Therefore, monies paid by ineligible companies to providers for these promotional opportunities are not considered to be commercial support and should be reported as advertising and exhibit income. These funds must comply with Standard 5 of the Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education.
- Total registration fees received from participants in your CME/CE activities. This can include registration, subscription, or publication fees.
- Total government monetary grants received. This includes monetary grants received from federal, state, or local governmental agencies in support of your Program.
- Total private monetary donations received. This includes monetary donations received from the private sector, including foundations, in support of your Program. Commercial support is not considered to be a private monetary donation.
Please note that commercial support information is reported at the individual activity level. Commercial support is defined as any monetary or in-kind contributions given by an ACCME-defined ineligible company that is used to pay all or part of the costs of a CME activity. You must report commercial support information, including the commercial support source(s) and amount received, for each individual activity that received commercial support.
Last Revised
December 19, 2023
CME Passport
CME Passport is a web-based search tool designed to help healthcare professionals find accredited CME activities that meet their needs. Users can search for information about currently available CME activities.
Activities are searchable by CME provider name, date, location, specialty, and points/credit type. Activity information for ACCME’s CME Passport is derived from data that organizations accredited within the ACCME system enter into the Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS).
For CME activities that are not open to the public (e.g., activities available only for employees or members of the provider’s organization), the provider can choose to not have the activity listed on CME Passport or can indicate that registration is “limited” when registering the activity in PARS, letting learners know that registration for the activity is limited to a specific audience and not open to all physicians. It is up to the provider to put restrictions in place for learner access to the activity, if necessary, as indicating “limited” only indicates that the activity may not be available.
Access CME Passport here.
Last Revised: November 16, 2021
Accredited providers that are currently entering learner credit data in ACCME’s Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS) can download and use the CME Passport provider mark to help promote this service to their physician learners. Download and learn how to use the mark here.
Publish Date: January 16, 2023
Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS)
Yes. There is no ACCME prohibition against including product-specific content in accredited CME. Accredited providers can develop and distribute product-specific content for activities based on the FDA blueprint for the Opioid Analgesics Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) because the blueprint was developed and issued independent of the control of an ineligible company. As with any CME activity, accredited providers must comply with the ACCME accreditation requirements. There is no special use standard or safe harbor for CME that supports the Opioid Analgesics REMS.
Resources
FDA Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) for Opioid Analgesics: This FDA information page includes links to the REMS blueprint, Q&A, news release, and other resources.
Providers should select “REMS Program Companies (RPC)” from the drop-down.
See the CME for FDA REMS page for more information about REMS.
The Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 gave the FDA the authority to require manufacturers of drugs and biological products to put in place special programs if the FDA determines that safety measures are needed beyond the professional labeling to ensure that the benefits of products outweigh their risks. The manufacturers then implement FDA-monitored actions to address those risks. The FDA calls each of these a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS). Read more on our CME for FDA REMS page.
The REMS Program Companies (RPC) assigns a unique identifier (RPC ID) to each activity for which it provides commercial support. Accredited providers that offer RPC-supported REMS activities are responsible for entering the RPC ID in the designated field in the REMS section of the Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS). This ensures that their RPC-supported activities can be identified and reported to the RPC and, ultimately, to the FDA. If you are an accredited provider that has received commercial support from the RPC for REMS activities and you have questions about the RPC ID, please contact the RPC.
Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS)
Yes. Eligible clinicians are encouraged to retain documentation of their participation in Improvement Activities for six years as required by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) document retention policy. CME providers are already retaining this information for their accredited activities, per the ACCME CME Activity and Attendance Records Retention Policy and can fulfill this role for their participating learners. For more information, see the Improvement Activities Fact Sheet in the QPP Resource Library.
Yes. In fact, the MIPS expectations for Completion of an Accredited Safety or Quality Improvement Program are the same as the expectations for Practice Assessment (Part IV) MOC for several medical specialty boards. For more information, see CME for MOC resources.
Yes. Activities that you already provide—such as improvement projects, weekly case conferences, quality committee meetings, personal learning plans, and self-assessment modules—can all meet the criteria for MIPS Improvement Activity: Completion of an Accredited Safety or Quality Improvement Program.
Yes. MIPS-eligible clinicians include many health professions in addition to physicians. Both the ACCME and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) encourage participation by multiple health professions.
Here are some examples of accredited CME activities that meet the expectations for the “Completion of an Accredited Safety or Quality Improvement Program” MIPS Improvement Activity:
- Our clinicians complete a self-evaluation each year and we ask them to identify an area for growth. We use these accumulated reports to create small group collaborative activities to address these gaps. As clinicians complete these activities – focused on their quality objectives – we can issue them CME and Maintenance of certification (MOC) credits and tell them how to attest to meeting MIPS expectations.
- We’ve recently implemented an electronic health record (EHR) system in our small family practice. We created an opportunity for clinicians to conduct some simple improvement projects using data reports from the EHR as a way to both learn how to use the system and identify and address opportunities to improve diagnostic accuracy and our coordination with other services (e.g., physical therapy, nutrition, mental health). We have checked in with each clinician over a 6-week period to hear about their progress and support them with any additional training we can provide.
Our quality assurance committee tracks several quality measures for our dialysis center. Twice per month, we meet to review problem areas and create a short-term improvement action plan. In last week’s meeting, we observed a higher number of infections among a group of patients and identified that some staff were unclear about which protocol they should be using. We created an action plan to conduct additional training for staff and we’ll look back to the quality measures for the next few weeks to see if that helps to lower the number of infections.
Clinicians can contact the Quality Payment Program at (866) 288-8292 [TTY (877) 715-6222] available Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM-8:00 PM Eastern or email at QPP@cms.hhs.gov.
Accredited CME providers can support participation in QPP and MIPS through any of the following approaches:
- Offer training and consultation with organizational stakeholders (e.g., leadership, administrative staff, clinicians) to help them navigate participation in payment reform.
- Identify existing practice and quality improvement work that clinicians are already doing that count as both accredited CME and MIPS Improvement Activities.
- Provide training and administrative support to help clinicians submit their MIPS Improvement Activity participation data.
Collaborate with stakeholders to integrate accredited CME with other organizational initiatives related to QPP and MIPS (e.g., data registries, quality reporting).
If your organization or practice is not using another mechanism to report MIPS participation data (e.g., CMS Web Interface, Qualified Clinical Data Registry, Electronic Health Record, Qualified Registry), individual clinicians, groups, virtual groups, and third-party intermediaries can log in and upload their improvement activities measure data in an approved file format on the Quality Payment Program (QPP) website. For more information, clinicians can check the QPP website Improvement Activities page.
For the accreditation process, there is no additional information that is required beyond what is required for any accredited CME activity. For reporting purposes, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) expects that accredited providers, “define meaningful clinician participation in their activity, describe the mechanism for identifying clinicians who meet the requirements, and provide participant completion information.”
The criteria are:
- The activity must address a quality or safety gap that is supported by a needs assessment or problem analysis, or must support the completion of such a needs assessment as part of the activity;
- The activity must have specific, measurable aim(s) for improvement;
- The activity must include interventions intended to result in improvement;
- The activity must include data collection and analysis of performance data to assess the impact of the interventions; and
The accredited program must define meaningful clinician participation in their activity and describe the mechanism for identifying clinicians who meet the requirements.
Any accredited CME activity can be an Improvement Activity if it:
- addresses a quality or safety gap;
- uncovers educational needs that—when addressed—can help close the gap;
- articulates what your participation in the activity seeks to improve;
- includes methods to help achieve that improvement; and
- evaluates the impact of the education on improving performance and/or quality
Can you give me some examples of CME Improvement Activities?
- Our clinicians complete a self-evaluation each year and we ask them to identify an area for growth. We use these accumulated reports to create small group collaborative activities to address these gaps. As clinicians complete these activities – focused on their quality objectives – we can issue them CME and MOC credits and tell them how to attest to meeting MIPS expectations.
- We’ve recently implemented an electronic health record (EHR) system in our small family practice. We created an opportunity for clinicians to conduct some simple improvement projects using data reports from the EHR as a way to both learn how to use the system and identify and address opportunities to improve diagnostic accuracy and our coordination with other services (e.g., physical therapy, nutrition, mental health). We have checked in with each clinician over a 6-week period to hear about their progress and support them with any additional training we can provide.
- Our quality assurance committee tracks several quality measures for our dialysis center. Twice per month, we meet to review problem areas and create a short-term improvement action plan. In last week’s meeting, we observed a higher number of infections among a group of patients and identified that some staff were unclear about which protocol they should be using. We created an action plan to conduct additional training for staff and we’ll look back to the quality measures for the next few weeks to see if that helps to lower the number of infections.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) expects that Completion of an Accredited Safety or Quality Improvement Program “include data collection and analysis of performance data to assess the impact of the interventions.” As the accredited CME provider, you can determine what approaches you use to measure the impact of the activity. The expectation for performance data can fulfilled with quantitative and/or qualitative data.
Any accredited CME activity can be offered, so long as it meets the expectations for the Completion of an Accredited Safety or Quality Improvement Program. There are no format limitations on these improvement activities.
The “Completion of an Accredited Safety or Quality Improvement Program” is the activity that ACCME submitted and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) approved as a MIPS Improvement Activity. This MIPS Improvement Activity is listed on the QPP website as Activity ID IA_PSPA_28, Subcategory Name: Patient Safety And Practice Assessment, with an Activity Weighting of Medium.
