ABPath Continuing Certification Program Requirements

Orbit Staff -

Your Continuing Certification (CC) program requirements from the American Board of Pathology (ABPath) are divided into two parts:

  1. Reporting - Professionalism, Lifelong Learning, and Improving Health and Health Care
  2. Assessment - participation and performance

To maintain your certification you must meet all CC requirement components by the end of your 10 year cycle, completing the reporting forms every two year period and meeting CertLink (ABPCL) assessment requirements.

Reporting

Every two year period during your 10 year cycle you must complete the reporting forms found in your PATHway account. For example, if you enrolled in 2022, your reporting forms are next due on December 31, 2024.

The reporting form consists of three areas of requirements:

  1. Professionalism
  2. Lifelong Learning
  3. Improving Health and Health Care

Professionalism

To fulfill your professionalism requirements you must:

  1. Maintain an active and unrestricted medical license
  2. Provide two references to complete a form emailed to them by ABPath attesting to your ability and effectiveness in practice
  • Reference information must be provided to ABPath at the beginning of year 3 of your 10 year cycle and then every 2 years onward. For example, if you enroll in 2022, references due at start of 2025, and then 2027, 2029, 2031, 2033, etc.
  • You can find a list of approved references here

3. Provide ABPath with information regarding your medical staff privileges and a description of your scope of practice.

Lifelong Learning

You must complete one of the below options every two year period to fulfill your Lifelong Learning requirement:

  1. Earn 70 AMA PRA Category I Credits™ and/or AOA Category 1A Credits.
  • 56 credits must directly relate to your scope of practice
  • The remaining 14 credits may be in areas of general relevance to medicine
  • You may claim 60 AMA Category 1 CME credits for successfully completing an ABMS examination

2. Complete a Physician-Scientist Research Pathway

3. Complete an ACGME-accredited fellowship or residency

Improving Health and Health Care

To fulfill your improving health and health care requirement you must complete

  1. Two PI/QA activities or programs every two year period.
  2. Each activity option can only be reported once a year except the ABMS Portfolio Program

Assessment

The CC program assessment requirement is completed by fulfilling the ABPath CertLink participation and performance requirements.

All aspects of ABPath CertLink are accessed through your PATHway account.

Participation

To fulfill the CertLink participation requirement you must:

  1. Design your custom assessment
  2. Answer the 15-25 CertLink questions assigned every 3 months
  • Use any resources available to them while answering a question other than talking to another person.
  • Read the critique after answering a question.

Performance

To fulfill the performance requirement of the CC program requirements you must achieve and maintain a standard of 60% accuracy or greater cumulative over four years.

* You may claim up to 5 credits of CME per year for completing your CertLink questions every quarter (1.25 credits per quarter).

How to select the best option for CME required by the ABPath Continuing Certification Program

When you're selecting a source to earn your CC required credits, think about these things:

  1. Monetary cost. How much does the activity cost per credit?
  2. Time cost. Your time is extremely valuable, particularly since you're probably working on CME outside of work. Ensure that the activity you choose is streamlined for efficiency.
  3. Compliance. The credit you earn for your CC requirements should be certified as AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ and/or AOA Category 1A credits to meet ABPath requirements.

Bottom Line

There are many free and paid options to earn CME credits, but only some options allow you to earn all of your CC required CME credits in one place. If you're looking for a way to earn all of your ABPath-required credits in one place, you might want to check out Orbit Pathology. It allows you to complete all of your ABPath credit requirements by reading journal abstracts and articles of your choice conveniently on your desktop, iPhone, or iPad.

Questions? We're glad to help. Email support@orbitcme.com