Bethesda, MD (August 6, 2015) - The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Board of Directors has unanimously approved a policy change in response to concerns from program directors, society leadership and others in the internal medicine community regarding the link between Maintenance of Certification (MOC) enrollment and certification status.

Effective immediately, diplomates who are meeting all other programmatic requirements will not lose certification simply for failure to enroll in MOC. They will be reported as “Certified, Not Participating in MOC” if they choose not to enroll in the program.

The previous policy had a particularly adverse effect on diplomates who just completed training or were engaged in fellowship. Some diplomates lost certification simply for failure to enroll in the MOC program even though they did not owe any fees. With this policy change, the status of those diplomates has been updated to “Certified.” All affected diplomates will be notified by e-mail.

The Transforming ABIM blog has been updated with additional information on this policy change, and can be viewed here.