CME Requirements

Since 2013, licensed physicians have been required by North Dakota law to complete 60 AMA Category 1 hours of continuing education every three years.  The CME compliance cycle follows the 2013 year of implementation, meaning CME compliance is required in the years 2016, 2019, 2022, etc.  At this time, each licensed physician, at the time of renewal, will be asked to certify compliance with CME requirements, with the following breakdown:

  • If the physician has been licensed for less than year, no CME is required.
  • If the physician has been licensed for one year, but less than two years, 20 CME hours are required.
  • If the physician has been licensed for two years but less than three years, 40 CME hours are required.
  • If the physician has been licensed for three or more years, 60 CME hours are required.

The Board does not require all physicians to submit documentation/proof of these hours. Rather, the Board will conduct an audit of a percentage of renewing physicians, who are then notified and required to submit proof of CME compliance.

The North Dakota Board of Medicine has collaborated with the Accreditation Council for Continuing Education (ACCME) to allow licensees to have accredited CME activities reported directly to the Board. Physician licensees need to ask their CME providers to report their participation in accredited CME activities directly to the ACCME. Once the CME provider has reported your participation, and it has been accepted in ACCME’s data system, the Board can view and verify your participation. For more information on reporting your CME and collaboration, please access the following document here.

Physicians may also use CME Passport to find, track, and generate transcripts of their reported CME through the following link: https://www.cmepassport.org/.

If CME is not reported into the ACCME database, and the physician is chosen for an audit, the physician will be responsible for providing the following information to establish CME compliance:

  1. Name of CME provider
  2. Name of program
  3. Hours of CME completed
  4. Dates of attendance
  5. Evidence of credit designation
  6. Verification of attendance

Please note that by law, every physician is required to maintain a record of all CME activities in which the physician has participated and maintain such records for at least one year following the time when those CME activities were reported to the Board.

For more information on CME requirements under North Dakota law, including exceptions, please see North Dakota Administrative Code chapter 50-04-01: https://www.legis.nd.gov/information/acdata/pdf/50-04-01.pdf.