ACCME-accredited providers use the ACCME’s Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS) to fulfill the ACCME’s year-end reporting requirements. Some Recognized Accreditors have opted to use PARS for their providers. Intrastate providers should check with their accreditor for information. This tutorial page is designed to walk you — as an accredited provider — through the process for using PARS to enter and submit your information to the ACCME. We will also provide practical tips for using PARS.
About the ACCME’s “Annual Report”
Each year, the ACCME collects, summarizes, and publishes information about the CME enterprise on its website as a service to accredited providers, other members of the CME community, and the public.
You can find past Annual Reports by clicking here.
Step 1: Understand What Data Providers Need to Submit at the End of Each Reporting Year
At the conclusion of each Reporting Year, a provider is required to submit information about their activities that took place during the year as well as financial data about their overall CME Program.
The Getting Started with PARS: Entering Activity Data video tutorial (see below) reviews how activity information can be entered into PARS as well as what information is required and the Getting Started with PARS: Program Summary video (also below) explores the year-end financial data related to the overall CME Program that needs to be completed.
You can find more video FAQs about using PARS on the Getting Started with PARS video tutorial page.
Step 2: Know the Deadline for Submitting Year-End Activity and Program Information
The deadline for submitting your organization's year-end data to the ACCME is the last business day in March of each year. You will be notified by your accreditor when it is time for your organization to submit your year-end data.
Step 3: How to Submit Your Information to the ACCME
As mentioned in Step 1, each year accredited providers are required to enter data into PARS about both their CME activities and their overall CME program. There are two parts to this step of submitting your information to the ACCME:
PART 1 - Ensure all Activities are "Closed"
First, click on the Activities tab. Make sure that the correct year is displayed in the Reporting Year field. For example, if you are reviewing information for the 2012 Reporting Year, “2012” should appear in this field. Once you have verified that you are reviewing the correct Reporting Year, you should ensure that you have entered or uploaded all of the activities for the reporting year and that all of the activities entered for that year appear under the Closed tab. If there are activities that appear under the Open tab for that Reporting Year, then you have not entered all required fields for those activities.
See the "What data are providers required to enter into PARS?" FAQ for more information about reporting requirements.
PART 2 - PROGRAM SUMMARY
Next, click on the Program Summary tab. There are four (4) financial reporting requirements on this page: "Total amount of commercial support", "Total advertising and exhibit income received", "Total income received from other sources", and "Total expenses of your CME unit". Any income or expense information that you have already entered at the activity level will automatically be totaled on this page. Review and verify that the total for each section accurately reflects the total income and expenses for your CME activities. If you have expenses or income that can not be attributed to individual activities, enter that those data into the appropriate blank fields. If the aggregated total displayed from the activities represents all of your income and expenses, or if this line items does not apply to your organization, then you can enter a "0" in the blank fields—you must enter either "0" or an amount in the blank fields in order to save your information.
Once you have verified the information on this page, click on the 
button.
Step 4: Attest that Your Data is Complete and Ready for ACCME Review
Finally, providers are required to attest that their data entry for the current Reporting Year is complete—as an indication to the ACCME that their organization’s data is ready to be reviewed and included in the information that ACCME compiles and publishes about the CME system each year.
After all of your activities for the Reporting Year are completed and Closed, and you have verified the income and expense information on the Program Summary tab, you are ready to attest that your PARS data reporting is complete for this Reporting Year. Scroll to the Attestation section of the Program Summary tab and click the button that says, "I Attest that Data is Complete for the [current] Reporting Year" (as seen here):
Videos:
