The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) and American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN) have announced that they are extending all maintenance of certification (MOC) requirement deadlines through Dec. 31, 2022, due to the clinical demands of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ABIM announcement emphasizes that no one will lose certification if they are unable to complete any MOC requirement this year, but ABIM will continue to offer all exams this year as scheduled, including the traditional, 10-year sleep medicine MOC exam on Nov. 3, 2021. Physicians who decide to delay their 2021 assessment will be able to enroll in the new longitudinal assessment when ABIM launches it in January 2022, or they can choose to take the traditional MOC exam on Nov. 28, 2022. In a separate announcement, the six boards that co-sponsor sleep medicine certification indicated that the ABIM longitudinal assessment will be available to sleep medicine diplomates from all co-sponsoring boards.

Similarly, the ABPN announcement states that for diplomates whose specialty or subspecialty certificates would have expired in 2020 or 2021, ABPN will defer the deadlines for the Continuing Certification (CC)/MOC examination and activities until Dec. 31, 2022. The ABPN will continue to offer CC examinations this year, including the sleep medicine MOC exam on Nov. 3,  and encourages diplomates to keep up with CC activities, if possible. Although ABPN will introduce a new Article Based Continuing Certification pathway — currently called the Pilot Project — next year, sleep medicine is not currently listed as one of the subspecialties that will be included in the pathway in 2022. However, as noted above, all sleep medicine diplomates will be eligible to participate in the ABIM longitudinal assessment.

Sleep medicine physicians certified through another board should consult the appropriate website for COVID-19 updates:

Learn more from the AASM about MOC for sleep medicine physicians.