The term “board eligible” has never been recognized by member boards of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), including the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM), but the term continues to be used by credentialing organizations and others to recognize noncertified physicians as having equivalent status. In practice, no limit exists on how long a non-certified physician could remain board eligible. The abuse of the term and the status perpetuated the ability of poorly qualified physicians to practice outside of their initial certification with a risk to patients and resulted in a lack of relationship between the initial certifying examination and training as a concurrent/ synergistic measure of physician competency.
In an effort to resolve this confusion for the credentialers and the patients, all member boards of the ABMS agreed to establish parameters under which noncertified physicians could actually be recognized as being board eligible and to further define the time limit for such eligibility status.
The ABFM Board of Directors decided at its meeting in October 2011 that it would define board eligibility as the first 7 years after loss of certification or the completion of an ACGME accredited residency training program. Therefore, beginning January 1, 2012, a physician will have 7 years in which to successfully complete his or her initial certification examination after completing training or, if previously certified, will have 7 years after the loss of certification to successfully complete the examination.
During this 7-year period, these board-eligible physicians will have to continue to meet the ongoing requirements to sit for the examination and must maintain a full, valid, and unrestricted license. After this 7-year period, the physician will lose the ability to refer to himself or herself as board eligible and will need to re-enter training and complete at least 1 year of additional training in an ACGME-accredited family medicine residency before he or she will be allowed to reapply to sit for the examination. This rule will be effective January 1, 2012. As further details of the program are developed they will be published.
- © 2012 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.