American Board of Dermatology Continuing Certification Program (CCP) Requirements

Annual CCP Fee - Each year, the ABD will send a reminder via email about the CCP $150 program fee that is due by December 31st of that year in order to "meet CCP requirements."

• License Attestation – ABD diplomates must attest annually that hold an active license to practice medicine or osteopathy in the US or Canada and that there have been no adverse actions against any licenses you hold in the US or Canada. This attestation must occur by December 31st of each year to be “participating in MOC.” Diplomates must also notify ABD annually whether they are clinically active or not. “Clinically active” is defined as any amount of direct and/or consultative patient care, compensated or uncompensated, that has been provided in the preceding 12 months.  

• CME Attestation - Each year, you are responsible for attesting to having earned a minimum of 25 hours of Category I CME. Half of the credits must be within the physician's specialty area or practice (i.e., 50% in dermatology). These hours should be accumulated in dermatologic education, but hours directly related to your type of practice are acceptable. For example, CME related to internal medicine would be acceptable if your practice is primarily a hospital-based consultation practice. Ethics, office management, and physician-patient relations are appropriate subjects for CME, but are not considered specialty-specific education.
  
  If you participate in the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) Transcript Program, your AAD-sponsored and self-reported CME and Self-Assessment credits can be automatically transferred to your ABD CCP Table.  To activate this data sharing for your profile, you must provide your consent on the AAD’s website: AAD.org -> Education -> CME Transcript Program -> View/Edit Transcript -> Change/View My Privacy Status.

• Patient Safety Exercise – ABD has further simplified the Patient Safety requirement. Recognizing that Patient Safety is embedded within most vehicles used to fulfill CCP requirements, the ABD eliminated the stand-alone Patient Safety requirement on the CCP Table in September 2018. All diplomates showing this requirement as Overdue or Upcoming were given a waiver. Diplomates who previously documented a stand-alone Patient Safety exercise on their CCP Table were automatically extended a 25-point Self-Assessment courtesy credit. 

• Periodic Self-Assessment – The Self-Assessment portion of CCP emphasizes learning based on self-assessment. These activities address relevant medical knowledge, ongoing advances, and competencies in our specialty, based on practice gaps identified within dermatology. In order to meet CCP requirements, ABD diplomates need to complete 100 self-assessment credits in Years 1-3, 4-6 and 7-10 of the 10-year cycle, for a total of 300 credits in the 10-year cycle.

There are many options for fulfilling the Periodic Self-Assessment (SA) requirement, including:

• Journals:  CUTIS, JAAD, and JAMA Dermatology SA activities
• Meetings:  ABD-approved SA sessions at local, regional, and national dermatology society meetings, including ASDP Annual Meeting Self-Assessment Course 
• Online:  AAD Question of the Week, AAD Case Challenges, ABD Focused Practice Improvement exercises, and ASDP Online Self-Assessments

• Practice Improvement - These activities are an opportunity to reflect on what might be improved in the care you deliver, whether organized around a specific disease or an important patient care function (such as improved access to health care, improved patient outcomes or an improved patient experience).
  
  • One QI activity must be completed in the first 5 years of each 10-year CCP cycle and another in the second 5 years of the cycle.
  • The ABD has a library of more than 40 Focused Practice Improvement exercises for diplomates to use to fulfill this requirement. There is not a fee for these exercises; the cost is covered under the annual CCP fee. 
  • The ABD also participates in the Multi-Specialty Portfolio Program which grants institutional approval to conduct Component 4 Practice Assessment/Quality Improvement activities. If you practice in one of the approved institutions, you may wish to determine whether you can access such a resource.

• The American Board of Dermatology has transitioned Continuing Certification (previously Maintenance of Certification or MOC) assessment activities to CertLink®.
  CertLink® is an assessment platform that combines longitudinal assessment and lifelong learning. Some of the items cover new information, based on recent scientific publications. Others provide a review or reminder of essential dermatology information. The process is both educational and evaluative. There is no additional cost to participate.

• Here’s how it works: ABD-certified diplomates log onto a secure portal to answer 13 questions every 3 months.
  With CertLink®, diplomates:
  • Have 10 minutes to answer each question,
  • May answer all questions in one sitting or over multiple sessions throughout the quarter,
  • Have access to recently published articles on the latest dermatology research and best practices,
  • May use written or online resources while answering the questions (although diplomates may not get help from or discuss questions with another person),
  • Once answers have been submitted, diplomates are notified immediately whether their answer is correct, and receive an explanation (rationale) for the correct answer,
  • If submitted answer is incorrect, diplomate will receive the question again the next quarter, and if the question is answered correctly, the previous incorrect answer will not be counted toward final score. Basically, diplomates get credit for learning something new.
  • May take a quarter off once a year if needed, but must elect time off before the end of that quarter.
  • Receive CME and self-assessment continuing certification credit for answering questions.

  Medical specialty boards, including the ABD, are transitioning to this method to offer: longitudinal assessment involving administering shorter assessments of specific dermatology content repeatedly over a period of time to help individual dermatologists increase their understanding, knowledge, and skills. CertLink® is being used by several ABMS Member Boards to create self-paced online programs for professional development that integrate learning and assessment into the pace of daily life.

For additional information on MOC requirements, visit the ABD website.

Updated March 16, 2023