Only certain organizations are eligible to receive ACCME accreditation. The following criteria must be met before an organization will be considered for ACCME accreditation. The ACCME accredits organizations to provide continuing medical education for physicians. The ACCME does not accredit individual educational activities.
The organization must:
- Be developing and/or presenting a program of CME for physicians on a regular and recurring basis.
- Not be an ineligible company.
- Not be developing and/or presenting a program of CME that is, in the judgment of the ACCME, devoted to advocacy on unscientific modalities of diagnosis or therapy.
- Present activities that have “valid” content.
- Specifically, the organization must be presenting activities that promote recommendations, treatment or manners of practicing medicine that are within the definition of CME.
- Providers are not eligible for accreditation if they present activities that promote treatments that are known to have risks or dangers that outweigh the benefits or are known to be ineffective in the treatment of patients.
The ACCME accredits the following organizations, if they choose to seek accreditation:
- State medical societies
- Liaison Committee for Medical Education (LCME)-accredited schools of medicine
- National physician membership organizations
- National medical specialty societies
- Other organizations whose programs of CME serve physician learners, 30% or more of whom are from beyond the home or contiguous state(s) of the organization.
- Organizations whose programs of CME primarily serve physician learners, 70% or more of whom are from the home or contiguous state(s) of the organization, are usually accredited by an ACCME recognized state medical society.
- Note that a CME provider may not maintain both ACCME accreditation and accreditation by a state medical society at the same time.
- If a state medical society accredited provider alters its function and successfully achieves ACCME accreditation, that provider must notify the respective state medical society.
- A similar process follows for ACCME accredited providers that become accredited by a state medical society.
- Organizations located or incorporated outside the US or its territories
When there is a question regarding eligibility, the ACCME reserves the right to make decisions on the issue, and has a formal process in place to do so.
ACCME Corporate Structure Review Process
The ACCME’s Corporate Structure Review process is in place to assist organizations in determining whether they, or an educational partner, may be an ineligible company.
The intent is to ensure that accredited CME and eligibility to be accredited be kept separate and independent from ineligible companies, as required by the ACCME Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education.
The ACCME has provided a set of self-assessment questions for use in determining whether an entity may be an ineligible company. These self-assessment questions may be found here.
If an organization answers yes to any of these questions, they would be defined by ACCME as an ineligible company. If after answering these questions, the organization still has questions regarding its status, it may wish to request that the ACCME conduct a corporate structure review.
An organization may contact the ACCME directly at info@accme.org if they wish to pursue having ACCME perform a corporate structure review. There is a fee ($4,000) for organizations that wish to have a corporate structure review conducted.