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American Board of Internal Medicine

MAINTENANCE OF CERTIFICATION AT A GLANCE

The mission of the American Board of Internal Medicine is to enhance the quality of health care by certifying internis and subspecialis who demonrate the knowledge, skills and attitudes essential for excellent patient care.

WELCOME TO ABIM MAINTENANCE OF CERTIFICATION

Medicine changes by the moment and what we knew yesterday is not necessarily going to be true today. What remains the same is that our patients want assurances that physicians are up-to-date on all the latest developments. One of our greatest professional challenges is staying current and keeping our knowledge relevant. ABIMs Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program supplements what youre already doing to keep up, helping you update your knowledge and skills and improve your practice. The program was developed for you by your peersteams of physicians with clinical and quality expertise. You will discover that MOC promotes ongoing enhancement of the clinical judgment and skills essential for high-quality patient care through study, self-assessment and evaluation.

Did You Know?

Research suggests that board certified physicians deliver higher quality care than their non-certified colleagues1 and that board certification is correlated with better outcomes and more reliable care.2 The public recognizes board certification and expects physicians to undergo rigorous, periodic examination of knowledge.3

The enclosed information will guide you on how to complete the requirements of MOC and get the most out of all that MOC has to oer. For more detailed information, please visit www.abim.org/moc. Got questions? Call the ABIM Customer Service Department at 1.800.441.ABIM or e-mail us at request@abim.org.

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF MOC

The components of the ABIM MOC program reflect the guidelines of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) and encompass the six general competencies established by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME): Professionalism, Patient Care and Procedural Skills, Medical Knowledge, PracticeBased Learning and Improvement, Interpersonal and Communication Skills, and Systems-Based Practice. The program is flexible and allows you to structure the components the way you see fit. Program requirements include:

Schedule, take and pass a secure examination. Earn 100 points of Self-Evaluation of Medical Knowledge and Self-Evaluation of Practice Performance credit. Be licensed and in good standing and fulfill any applicable procedural requirements for your subspecialty.

Everything you need to know about MOC is available at www.abim.org/moc.

Did You Know?

Physicians value the Maintenance of Certification process for its eort to improve quality of care and patient safety.4 86% of diplomates would participate in MOC again, and 80% would recommend MOC to a colleague.5 You do not need to maintain internal medicine certification to maintain certification in most subspecialties.

Maintenance of Certification is ju good business common sense. Having made a huge invement in our medical education, it is critical to continue to update and enhance our expertise.
DAVID J. ALBRIGHT, MD Brattleboro, VT
ABIM Board Certified: Internal Medicine (1972, 1980, 1997, 2007)

GETTING STARTED
MOC is flexibly designed to help you complete your requirements in any order you wish, and you do not need to earn all your points before you take the exam. The ABIM website can guide you through the program; and your home page, accessible via the Physician Login, is your place to order modules and track your progress.

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BIM Custo Call the A .441.ABIM t at 1.800 .m. epartmen D ay, 8:30 a ough Frid r . Monday th rday, 9 a.m . ET; Satu 8 p.m il them at T; or e-ma 12 p.m. E abim.org. request@

To locate your Physician Login home page:

Go to the Physician Login, located on the right side of ABIMs home page at www.abim.org. Enter your ABIM ID and your password.

If youve never logged in before, the default password is your six-digit date of birth (MMDDYY).

From your Physician Login, youll be able to:

View your MOC program status, order modules and track your progress. Submit completed modules for scoring and CME credit. Check out your report of CME earned. Update your contact information. Submit your work to health plans.

Did You Know?

You can earn MOC credit for some of the activities in which youre already involved.

THE SECURE EXAMINATION

Maintenance of Certification examinations are designed to assess what you know by evaluating your knowledge and clinical judgment across the common and important clinical entities within your discipline. These secure examinations are oered twice a year, in the spring and fall. Each computer-based exam includes exam questions developed by a team of specialists in practice and academic medicine.

Did You Know?

Exam blueprints detailing the content areas of each MOC exam are available by subspecialty at www.abim.org/exam. Exam tutorials, also located at www.abim.org/exam, take about 30 minutes and give you the opportunity to practice:

Answering questions. Changing answers. Making notes electronically. Accessing the table of normal laboratory values. Marking questions for review.

Schedule Your Exam During the Regi stration Period

Registration Periods:

You can take the exam in years six - 10 of your certification.

December 1 February May 1 August 15

Spring Exam:

28

Fall Exam:

Exams are administered at over 200 test centers nationwide and internationally. Visit www.abim.org/ schedule-moc.aspx to lea rn how to schedule your exa m

SELF-EVALUATION OF MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE

Physicians have a variety of options to earn medical knowledge credit toward ABIMs MOC program. ABIM Self-Evaluation of Medical Knowledge modules reflect what is current in practice and help you stay current with the latest, clinically relevant developments in your specialty while earning MOC credit. The modules, presented in an open book format of multiple-choice questions, are enhanced by the inclusion of rationales and references (when applicable) for each clinical scenario, available upon completion of the module. Medical knowledge modules allow you to perform a diagnostic self-assessment of your strengths and weaknesses in important aspects of the knowledge base underlying each certification area. In addition, some products from specialty societies have been approved for Self-Evaluation of Medical Knowledge credit.

Did You Know?

Self-Evaluation of Medical Knowledge modules can help you earn both MOC points and CME credit. New Annual Update modules are released every year in internal medicine and each subspecialty. Each year, there are three modules available in a subspecialty. Information about knowledge modules is available at www.abim.org/mk. You can also earn credit for completing a module at a society-sponsored learning session.

ABIMs medical knowledge modules . . . helped me to identify further areas of udy so I could then go to the literature to bone up. I now feel more secure in the knowledge I share when teaching fellows.
KIM ISAACS, MD, PHD, Chapel Hill, NC ABIM Board Certified: Internal Medicine (1987); Gastroenterology (1991, 2001)

SELF-EVALUATION OF PRACTICE PERFORMANCE

MOCs Self-Evaluation of Practice Performance requirement provides you with a way to apply quality measurement to your practice and then use the resulting data to improve care. ABIM oers a variety of pathways to complete your practice performance requirements.

To determine the best practice performance option for you, answer these questions:

Do you receive trusted performance data about your practice? The ABIM Self-Directed PIM may be the best option for you. Are you participating in a Quality Improvement (QI) project that has been pre-approved for ABIM credit? Try the Approved Quality Improvement (AQI) pathway. Do you supervise medical students, residents or fellows in either an in-patient or out-patient setting? Try the Clinical Supervision PIM or use PIMs in Residency.

Make It a Team Effort

Team up with one or more physicians in your practice to collectively engage in quality improvement activities by completing the Group PIM option to meet your Self-Evaluation of Practice Performance requirement.

Not clinically active? Use the Essentials of Quality Improvement module. If none of the above options seem to fit, dont worry whether you work in an in-patient or out-patient setting, there are a variety of ABIM PIMs Practice Improvement Modules available to help you meet your practice performance requirements.

ALL ABOUT PIMS

The ABIM PIMs Practice Improvement Modules are Web-based tools that enable you to conduct a confidential self-evaluation of the medical care you provide. They help you gain knowledge about your practice through data analysis, which you use to develop and implement a plan to target areas for improvement. PIMs allow you to reference national guidelines for care, use measures developed by others and use links to educational resources. Visit www.abim.org/pims for details about each PIM.

What Peers Say 6 about PIMs

72% changed their practice as
a result of doing a PIM.

82% say theyd recommend a

PIM to a colleague.

74% felt they had a valuable

learning experience completing a PIM.

How PIMs Work

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Conduct a chart review and submit data7 through the PIM to ABIM. Select areas of improvement from the report ABIM provides. Develop an improvement plan. Implement and test your plan. Report the impact of your changes and receive MOC credit and earn CME. Submit for recognition and rewards from health plans.8

Did You Know?

PIMs allow you to examine your own data. Physicians may complete PIMs with their colleagues rather than individually, thereby sharing the burden of data collection and benefitting from increased learning through collaboration. The Self-Directed and Completed Project PIMs enable you to report QI activities in which you are already involved, using quality data you already have.

REAPING THE REWARDS

By completing MOC, you may become eligible for certain benefits and rewards from health plans and others:

Earn CME credit while completing MOC. See www.abim.org/cme for details. Be recognized. Some health plans9 oer participating physicians special recognition in provider directories and inclusion in quality-tiered networks. See www.abim.org/moc/healthcare for details. Earn bonuses. A number of health plans10 provide pay for performance score or bonus payments to physicians who complete Maintenance of Certification. Upon MOC completion, ACP members insuring with The Doctors Company can receive a 5 percent patient safety credit.

In completing MOC, Im also taking advantage of CME opportunities. The hospitals where I have privileges require ongoing CME activity, making the credits from the recertification process a great benefit.
STEVEN GLAZER, MD Norwalk, CT
ABIM Board Certified: Internal Medicine (1994, 2004)

CITATIONS
1

Holmboe ES, Wang Y, Meehan TP, Tate JP, Ho S-Y, Starkey KS, et al. Association between maintenance of certification examination scores and quality of care for medical beneficiaries. Arch Intern Med. 2008;168:1396-1403. Wenghofer E, Klass D, Abrahamowicz M, Dauphinee D, Jacques A, Smee S, et al. Doctor scores on national qualifying examinations predict quality of care in future practice. Med Educ. 2009;43:1166-1173 Freed GL, Dunham KM, Clark SJ, Davis MM; Research Advisory Committee of the American Board of Pediatrics. Perspectives and preferences among the general public regarding physician selection and board certification. J Pediatr. 2010 May;156(5):841-5, 845.e1. Epub 2010 Feb 6. Norcini JJ, Lipner RS, Kimball HR. Certifying examination performance and patient outcomes following acute myocardial infarction. Med Educ. 2002;36:853-859. MOC Assessment Survey, Jan 2008 January 2011. Response Rate = 20% (4,486/22,251). Demographic and performance characteristics are similar for responders and non-responders. POST PIM Survey, July 2009 September 2010. N= 7,750. Patient identifiers within PIM chart reviews are not saved anywhere in the ABIM information system. All patient data collected are anonymous and HIPAA-compliant. When ABIM uses practice performance data or other information for research purposes, including collaboration with other investigators and scientific publications, we do not identify specific individuals, hospitals or practice associations. Please note that these health plans have voluntarily aligned themselves with the ABIM MOC program. ABIM does not benefit financially, and the plans have no input in MOC modules. Please visit www.abim.org/moc/healthcare for a current listing of participating plans. Ibid Ibid

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Of the Profession, For the Public

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ABIM is one of 24 medical specialty boards that make up the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS).

510 Walnut Street Suite 1700 Philadelphia, PA 19106 - 3699 1.800.441.ABIM www.abim.org

Copyright 2012 American Board of Internal Medicine All rights reserved E133-07-2012