What is MOC? Part 1: Evidence of Professional Standing

What is MOC?
The Maintenance of Certification (MOC) Program
demonstrates to the public and your peers your
support for continuous quality improvement, professional development, and quality patient care.
It is an integral part of the quality movement in
healthcare and is highly valued by patients and
physician colleagues alike. MOC builds on the
validity of the initial certification process and
provides a framework for self-regulation by the
profession to improve quality of care. The program embraces the adult learning principles of
accumulated life experience, self-direction, goalorientation, and achievability.
MOC encompasses the essential competencies
involved in the delivery of quality care, which
extend beyond medical knowledge. The MOC
Program must be developed and maintained
throughout your professional career. It is designed to evaluate, on a continuous basis, the
six essential competencies (initially developed in
residency training) by means of four parts. The six
competencies are:
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Medical knowledge
Patient care and procedural skills
Interpersonal and communication skills
Professionalism
Practice-based learning and improvement
Systems-based practice
MOC uses four parts to evaluate the competencies:
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Part 1: Evidence of professional standing
Part 2: Lifelong learning and self-assessment
Part 3: Cognitive expertise
Part 4: Practice quality improvement
For more information on the evidence for MOC,
go to www.abms.org/EvidenceLibrary.
Part 1:
Evidence of Professional Standing
This part requires valid, unrestricted licensure
to practice medicine in all states in which the
diplomate holds active license. A diplomate must
report any state board action against a license to
the board within 60 days.
Part 2:
Lifelong Learning and Self-assessment
At least 75 AMA Category 1 CME credits are
required every 3 years. A minimum of 70 percent
must be in diagnostic radiology or related areas,
with the remaining 30 percent either in clinically
related areas or in relevant topics such as risk
assessment, ethics, statistics, the processes of
continuous quality improvement, methodologies
of outcomes measurement, etc.
At least 25 of the 75 Category 1 CME credits must
be self-assessment CME (SA-CME). In addition
to ABR prequalified SAMs, the ABR will count
all AMA Category 1 CME activities in “enduring
materials” (including web-based and print) and
“journal-based CME” formats toward the MOC
self-assessment requirement. According to the recently adopted AMA policy for CME, these activities include the following features that suit them
for use as self-assessment tools:
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They provide an assessment of the learner that
measures achievement of the educational purpose and/or objective(s) of the activity
with an established minimum performance level; examples include, but are not limited
to, patient-management case studies, a posttest, and/or the application of new concepts
in response to simulated problems.
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They communicate to the participants the
minimum performance level that must be
demonstrated in the assessment to
successfully complete the activity for AMA
PRA Category 1 Credit.™
• They provide a reference to appropriate biblio graphic sources to allow for further study.
Part 3:
Cognitive Expertise
This part requires having passed the MOC exam
or an ABR initial certification exam (primary or
subspecialty) within the past 10 years. The MOC
exam is a proctored, secure, computer-based
examination.
The exam consists of 25 percent noninterpretive
skills and 75 percent clinical content, related to
the diplomate’s practice profile. Three modules
will comprise the clinical portion and may include
one or any combination of the following topics
(depending on the diplomate’s selection):
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Breast
Cardiac
Gastrointestinal
General Radiology
Genitourinary
Musculoskeletal
Neuroradiology
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Nuclear
Pediatric
Thoracic
Ultrasound
Vascular and Interventional Radiology
Diplomates may take the exam any time it is offered, including multiple times if necessary. The
diplomates’ practice experience can help them
immensely as they take the exam. Study guides
for clinical content areas are available on the ABR
website. An ABR-produced Noninterpretive Skills
Syllabus is also available.
Part 4:
Practice Quality Improvement (PQI)
ABR’s MOC Program provides its diplomates with
a robust mechanism for continuous professional
development. Through Part 4, MOC also offers
a pathway to participation in practice quality
improvement (PQI). The PQI initiative is a framework to facilitate improvement of medical care
and/or its delivery for an individual, a group, or
an institution. Quality and safety
in medical care have become
a national priority, and Part 4
of MOC permits radiologists to
demonstrate both their commitment to this enterprise and, in
some instances, their compliance with associated
external requirements.
PQI and the PDSA Process
PDSA stands for “Plan – Do – Study – Act,” a
four-step process commonly used for continuous
quality improvement. This simple but powerful
tool may serve as the basis for an action-oriented iterative process by linking multiple PDSA
cycles repeated in sequence. An initial cycle is
performed to obtain baseline data, followed by
subsequent cycles applied to assess the effects of
quality improvement initiatives.
PLAN. Identify an area of your practice judged to be in
need of improvement and devise a measure to assess
the degree of need. Develop a plan to implement the
measure and obtain the required data. Finally, set a
target or goal for the measure to be reached.
DO. Set your plan in motion and collect data.
STUDY. Determine how well your measure compares to the desired goal. Explore root causes for
lacking goal achievement.
ACT. Consider what can be done to address the
root causes and develop an improvement plan
to implement during the next PDSA cycle. After
improvement plan implementation, begin another PDSA cycle to assess the degree of any gain
achieved. The cycle can be used continuously until
the goal is reached or employed intermittently to
document the stability of any gain achieved. More
detailed PDSA information, along with generic
templates that can be used as step-by-step guides
in completing your projects, can be found on the
ABR website at www.theabr.org/moc-dr-comp4.
Continuous Certification
How Do I Participate?
The ABR has implemented a new integrated process that links the ongoing validity of certificates to
meeting the requirements of MOC. Under the new
process, known as “continuous certification,” ABR
certificates will no longer have “valid-through” dates.
Instead, on each new certificate in diagnostic radiology, radiation oncology, or medical physics, the date
of initial certification will be noted and accompanied
by the statement that “ongoing validity of this certificate is contingent upon meeting the requirements of
Maintenance of Certification.”
For each diplomate who is a current enrollee in MOC,
continuous certification has replaced the 10-year
MOC cycle. Under the new policy, the total number
of MOC requirements will not change. Progress
will be evaluated annually in March, using a rolling
calendar-year “look-back.” The first “full” annual lookback, including MOC Parts 1-4 and fees, will occur in
March 2016.
How Does Continuous Certification Work?
MOC
Year
Lookback date
Element(s) checked
2012
3/15/2013
Licensure and Exam
2013
3/15/2014
Licensure and Exam
2014
3/15/2015
Licensure and Exam
2015
3/15/2016
Licensure, CME/SA-CME, Exam,
PQI, and Fees
2016
3/15/2017
Licensure, CME/SA-CME, Exam,
PQI, and Fees
2017
3/15/2018
Licensure, CME/SA-CME, Exam,
PQI, and Fees
2018
3/15/2019
Licensure, CME/SA-CME, Exam,
PQI, and Fees
20XX
3/15/20XX
Licensure, CME/SA-CME, Exam,
PQI, and Fees
Useful Links
The American Board of Radiology
www.theabr.org
Maintenance of
Certification
(MOC)
CME Gateway
www.cmegateway.org
ABMS Public Site
www.certificationmatters.org
myABR
https://myabr.theabr.org
For Diagnostic Radiology
and Its Subspecialties
Status Check for “Meeting Requirements”
Element
Compliance Requirement
Licensure
At least 1 valid state medical license
CME
At least 75 Category 1 CME credits in previous 3 years
SA-CME
At least 25 of the 75 Category 1 CME must
be Self-Assessment CME (SA-CME).
Exam
Passed ABR Initial Certification or MOC
exam in previous 10 years
PQI
Completed at least 1 PQI project in previous 3 years
Fees
Current with MOC fees at any time during
the previous 3 years
Please note that the ABR will conduct yearly,
random audits. If you are audited, you will be
asked to submit documentation of your current
progress on MOC Parts 1, 2, and 4.
The American Board of Radiology is a Member
Board of the American Board of Medical
Specialties (ABMS):
www.abms.org
ABMS Evidence Library:
www.abms.org/EvidenceLibrary
5441 E. Williams Circle, Tucson, AZ 85711-7412
Phone: 520-519-2152 • Fax: 520-790-3200
abrmocp@theabr.org
08/14