If you are an American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Board-Certified physician newly certified in Internal Medicine, or a fellow who has completed an accredited fellowship year, ABIM recognizes the work that goes into those efforts with fee waivers, credits, and MOC points.

When ABIM updated its MOC program in January 2014, the program was designed to provide continuous learning opportunities for doctors and to help physicians, their colleagues, and their patients know that they were staying current in knowledge and practice throughout their careers. Recognizing that those who have just completed training and those engaged in fellowship are just beginning their careers or are embedded in learning environments, ABIM wants to recognize this work as part of MOC and, thus, not burden these individuals with additional MOC costs or activities.

For those newly certified in Internal Medicine:

• Passing the Internal Medicine exam earns a waiver that covers the MOC program fee for the first calendar year after earning the certification.

• A diplomate will need to enroll in MOC but will not owe any fees through the subsequent calendar year ending December 31.

For those in ACGME-accredited fellowship training:

• For each year of successful ACGME-accredited fellowship training*, fellows earn:

• a full year’s MOC fee credit and

• 20 MOC points (10 in medical knowledge and 10 in practice assessment)

• The MOC fee credit, earned at the end of the academic year, will be applied to the following calendar year as long as the fee credit is claimed by logging into the Physician Login, clicking on “Enroll in MOC,” and applying the credit on the payment screen.

The fee credit is earned when the fellowship program director submits an evaluation via ABIM’s online clinical competence evaluation system (FasTrack®) following a year of successfully completed accredited fellowship training. It’s important to note that the fee credit is not automatically applied to a diplomate’s account; rather, every year a credit is earned, it must be claimed when enrolling in MOC via the Physician Login. Fellows and recent graduates are encouraged to make sure and confirm with their program director that evaluations have been submitted (via (ABIM’s online clinical competence evaluation system) by September after the training year was completed (most often training years end in June, but this may vary for some academic years at some institutions).

Please note - fellows and recent graduates (within 5 years of completing an initial certification examination in Internal Medicine or a subspecialty) will remain certified whether or not they choose to enroll in MOC; however, if they participate in an unaccredited training year either before or after accredited training years, they may need to pay an MOC program fee for that year in order to be reported as participating in MOC, since fee credits are granted for the calendar year after successful completion of accredited training years (most academic years end in June). Unaccredited years may include:

• year(s) spent working as a hospitalist between residency and fellowship,

• research years that are unaccredited, and

• a year as a chief resident, usually occurring immediately following residency before starting fellowship.

However, as noted above, if the fellow does not enroll in MOC and pay the MOC program fee for the calendar year after the unaccredited training year, they will remain certified as long as they are meeting all other programmatic requirements, but will be reported as not participating in MOC. The fellow will be reported as participating in MOC as soon as they enroll in the MOC program by either paying the MOC program fee or claiming the fee credit earned through fellowship training. Going forward, as they successfully complete accredited training years, they will receive the fee credit that can be applied to MOC program fee due each subsequent calendar year.

*Fellowship years in ABIM subspecialties completed in 2014 and after are eligible if accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, or the Professional Corporation of Physicians of Quebec. Currently, only accredited years are tracked by ABIM in its online clinical competence evaluation system, and, therefore, only the accredited years can be verified reliably across all programs for satisfactory completion. If in doubt, fellows should contact their program director to verify whether their training is accredited.

We encourage you to visit and subscribe to the Transforming ABIM blog (http://transforming.abim.blog) to learn more about ABIM’s ongoing discussions regarding certification and MOC and upcoming opportunities to provide input.

To learn more about your specific requirements and deadlines, or to check your certification status, log into www.abim.org to view your MOC Status Report.

We look forward to sharing more updates with you as we continue our work of ensuring the relevancy of MOC to pulmonary disease physicians across the country.

ABIM Continues to Offer MOC Benefits for Newly Certified Internal Medicine Physicians and Fellows