The American Board of Surgery recently announced changes to the way diplomates receive Maintenance of Certification (MOC, or Continuous Certification/CC) credit when participating in continuing medical education (CME) activities. As of July 1, 2023, ABS will discontinue self-reporting of credits by diplomates.
This means that as of July 1, 2023, if an ABS surgeon wants to have CME credit count towards their ABS CC requirements, the request will need to come through the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) Program Activity and Reporting System (PARS).
When ABS joined the CME for MOC Collaboration in 2021, all accredited providers became able to register their CME activities for ABS CC and report surgeon learners’ credit in PARS. The Collaboration was intended to simplify the reporting of CME credits, allow surgeons more time to focus on their own professional development and less time managing their credits and requirements, and streamline the search for relevant CME activities. Since that time, more than 150 accredited providers have registered their activities for ABS.
While there is no requirement for accredited providers to report credit for any certifying board, participating in the CME for MOC Collaboration allows accreditors an opportunity to add value to the CME programs and relieve physicians of their reporting burdens.
This change is also expected to make CC easier for diplomates, as ABS accepts any accredited CME relevant to surgery for CC requirements and many providers will have CME activities that can count. This also means that if an activity is not already registered through PARS, an ABS surgeon can request it be registered through PARS and the credit will be reported that way. Once the credit is reported in PARS, it will be made available to ABS and will show up in the surgeon’s ABS profile.
In the meantime, if you are an ABS Diplomate and you do not see a previously completed CME activity in your ABS CME repository, you can either manually upload that information prior to July 1, 2023, or you can contact the CME provider to see if they are able to send that information on your behalf to the ABS. The ability to manually upload information will cease on July 1, 2023.
When registering for a CME activity with an accredited CME provider in the future, ABS diplomates will need to provide the following information so that the CME provider can appropriately report CME credit: first and last name, date of birth (month and year) and permission to share the information with ACCME and ABS. CME providers are asked to report all CME credits to ACCME within 30 days of completion of the activity.
Related ACS MyCME Changes
ABS also noted that starting in April 2023, the American College of Surgeons (ACS) will launch an updated process to submit CME credit from the ACS MyCME system to ABS, in alignment with the new ABS system. ACS members will need to log into their ACS MyCME account, provide their ABS ID, select the date range for CME credit, and allow the data transfer to take place.
Resources for Accredited Providers
ACCME continues to provide a multitude of resources to help accredited providers with reporting MOC/CC credit, including the CME for MOC Program Guide, the CME for MOC Beginner’s Guide, the CME for MOC Planning Worksheet, a tutorial on how to register CME activities for MOC credit, and a tutorial showing how to submit learner data for MOC in PARS.
ACCME also notes that there are options for accredited providers when it comes to registering activities and reporting learners’ credit, depending on the volume of activities and learners. Some of the options include entering the information into PARS manually, uploading the information using an Excel spreadsheet, or using a web services connection to PARS to report the data directly from the LMS.