CME Credit Process Update

Original publication: March 17, 2023
Update: June 18, 2024

View past updates here.
The American Board of Surgery (ABS) Discontinued the CME Credit Self-Claiming Process for Diplomates on July 1, 2023 

The American Board of Surgery (ABS) made changes to its CME processes, which impact the way that Diplomates interact with the Board, upload CME credits, and meet Certification requirements. You are no longer able to self-claim your credits. A CME provider, such as SVS, must transfer your CME credits for you.  ABS turned off the self-claiming credit process on their website as of July 1, 2023. SVS is committed to complying with the new rules and making your ability to claim credit as seamless as possible, however, we are still in the process of aligning our systems to meet these new requirements.   

The SVS is aware of key dates at the ABS and is working to get all credit to the ABS as soon as possible. We recognize how important this is for all ABS diplomats and aligning our systems is a top priority. This page will be kept up to date and we will continue to communicate any updates to our deliverables as soon as they are confirmed. To ensure all your CME credits earned with SVS are transferred to the ABS, follow the steps outlined below:   

Before you claim credit for any SVS activity, please make sure your SVS account matches your ABS account for the following fields (see instructions here), or that the information you are entering to claim credit matches your SVS account (e.g. for the any Journal activity). Your SVS account, or the information you provide SVS to claim credit needs to exactly match your ABS account for the following fields in order for the SVS to transfer credit to your ABS account.

 

  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Date of Birth (just month and day need to match)
  • ABS Board ID # (preceding zeros can display or not display & still match)

1. Confirm CME credits previously earned with SVS 

If you earned credit for the following activities, SVS has already transferred credit on your behalf. Please login to your ABS account to confirm your credits are listed. 

  • 2022 & 2023 E/M Coding Workshop (NOTE: This does not include AAPC CEUs)
  • 2022 & 2023 Coding & Reimbursement Workshop (NOTE: This does not include AAPC CEUs)
  • 2022 & 2023 Complex Peripheral Vascular Interventions Workshop
  • Leadership Development Program - Cohort 3 and Cohort 4
  • VESAP5 credits earned in 2021-2023
    • If the most recent date you earned credit for a VESAP5 was in 2020, and you did not self-report credit to the ABS by the July 1, 2023 cutoff date, please contact the ABS and request they add your credit earned in 2020 directly to your ABS account for VESAP5. The SVS joined the collaboration to transfer credit to the ACCME and ABS in 2021. As such, the system is unable to accept credit earned in 2020.
  • 2022, 2023, 2024 VRIC

2. SVS will automatically transfer earned CME credits to ABS for these programs

  • 2024 E/M Coding Workshop 
  • 2024 Coding & Reimbursement Workshop
  • 2024 Complex Peripheral Vascular Intervention (CPVI) Skills Course
  • 2024 Leadership Development Program

3. SVS will manually transfer earned CME credits to ABS for specific activities

SVS will periodically transfer the following CME credits to ABS on your behalf until an automated process is established. In these instances, credits will be transferred to ABS by January 31 and August 1. While ABS is stating that providers need to transfer credits within 30 days of completing an activity, this is currently not possible for the activities below until an automated process is in place. 

  • JVS and JVS-VL Journal Issues Feb. 2022-Feb. 2024 – credit earned through Jan. 29, 2024, has been transferred. The next credit transfer will be on August 1.
  • VAM24
  • VQI24
  • VESAP6

Credit transfer schedule for the above activities:

Starting Date

Ending Date

In the ABS System

January 1

June 30

August 1

July 1

December 31

January 31

4. SVS is unable to transfer credit for these past CME activities.

If you earned credit for any of the following activities and did not self-report them to the ABS by June 30, 2023, please contact the ABS to report your credits directly to the ABS, as the SVS does not have a way to retroactively report credit for these past activities. 

  • JVS and JVS-VL Journal Issues January 2022 or prior 
  • VAM 2022 or prior

What if I do not see my credit in my ABS account?

Contact education@vascularsociety.org. 

 

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Four critical steps you can take to ensure your SVS credits are submitted to ABS in a timely fashion:

  1. Read and Review all of the information on this page. If you have questions contact education@vascularsociety.org.
  2. Going forward, complete any required evaluations and submit for credit within 30 days of completion of an activity.  This is a requirement from ABS and ACCME. 

  3. When paying for or accessing a CME activity from any provider going forward, pay attention to the date of when CME credit expires or is no longer available. Granting access to complete evaluations or claim credit after these dates may no longer be possible under the new process. 

  4. Within your member profile and/or within a CME activity, SVS now asks learners to provide or verify the accuracy of Date of Birth and ABS Board ID. Doing this provides SVS with permission to transfer your credits through ACCME to ABS.  It is critical to collect this information to ensure there are no data transfer errors to ABS.  Additionally, if you do not provide this information at the time you are claiming credit, it will not be possible to retroactively update your information and provide permission.