ABEM MyEMCert: The Emergency Physician's Guide to Staying Certified Without the Exam Every Decade

Emergency medicine has 52,829 active physicians in the United States (HRSA 2023). If you are one of them, you have watched the ABEM certification model evolve from the traditional 10-year proctored exam to the continuous MyEMCert model — and you may be less than certain about exactly what MyEMCert requires, how it interacts with your state CME obligations, and whether you are actually current.

The EM community's general feeling about board certification maintenance is not neutral. "You're stuck with all the MOC crap forever." "The safest thing to do is to take the exam… but then you're stuck." That fatalism reflects a real frustration with the direction board certification has taken across specialties. Whether or not you share it, understanding the actual mechanics of MyEMCert is worth more than venting.

What MyEMCert Actually Is

ABEM's official "new way to stay certified" — the longitudinal assessment model

MyEMCert is ABEM's official ongoing assessment model, positioned as the primary alternative to the traditional 10-year proctored recertification exam. ABEM describes it as a "new way to stay certified" that keeps emergency physicians engaged with specialty-specific knowledge on a continuous basis rather than through a single high-stakes exam event.

The model is built on the principle that ongoing learning engagement produces better clinical outcomes and better-prepared emergency physicians than studying intensively for one exam every decade and disengaging the rest of the time. Whether that principle translates into administrative practice depends heavily on how well the quarterly question structure fits into the rhythm of clinical emergency medicine work.

How it differs from the 10-year ABEM exam model

The traditional ABEM recertification exam was a proctored, timed examination covering the full breadth of emergency medicine knowledge. You prepared, you sat for the exam in a testing center, and you passed or failed. A passing result meant 10 more years of certification.

MyEMCert replaces this with a continuous assessment model spread across the certification period. Instead of studying for one exam, you engage with assessment questions on a regular schedule throughout the period. Instead of one outcome event, certification status is maintained through sustained participation.

The practical implication: there is no longer a single "exam date" to prepare for and survive. But there is a persistent obligation to engage with the assessment on schedule throughout the period.

Who is eligible and when you start

ABEM-certified emergency medicine physicians are eligible for MyEMCert. The transition from the traditional exam model to MyEMCert was phased. If you have been recertified under the traditional exam in recent years, your transition point to MyEMCert is tied to your certificate expiration date and ABEM's enrollment process.

For physicians currently in their certification cycle, the ABEM portal is the definitive source for your current status and your MyEMCert enrollment eligibility and timing.

The Mechanics of the MyEMCert Model

Question frequency, time windows, and how you answer

MyEMCert delivers specialty-specific clinical questions through the ABEM portal on a scheduled basis. The questions are designed to reflect the clinical content of emergency medicine practice — resuscitation, critical care, toxicology, trauma, pediatric emergencies, and the breadth of emergency presentations.

Questions are answered online, in your own environment, without a proctor. Each question set has a defined time window for completion. The questions are not open-book in a library sense — you are expected to answer based on clinical knowledge — but you are not under formal proctored examination conditions.

The practical reality of completing these questions as an emergency physician is worth acknowledging: EM shifts are not conducive to scheduled administrative tasks during the work day. Most EM physicians who successfully keep up with MyEMCert treat question completion as something done before or after a shift block, not as a task to squeeze into a 12-hour clinical day.

What passing looks like under the ongoing model

Under MyEMCert, "passing" is not a single binary outcome as it was under the traditional exam model. Certification maintenance is the result of sustained completion of required question sets within their designated windows. Meeting the completion requirements across the assessment period maintains your ABEM certification as "current."

ABEM's portal shows your current certification status and your completion progress. This is the source of truth — not your memory of when you last answered questions or your general sense that you are current.

What "lapsing" means in the continuous model and how to recover

If you fall significantly behind on MyEMCert question completion and miss required windows, your certification status can lapse. Under the continuous model, lapsing is not a one-time event that triggers a clear reinstatement path — it is an accumulating deficit that affects your ongoing status.

ABEM has provisions for physicians who miss requirements, but recovery is not simply a matter of completing the overdue questions after the window has closed. If you are concerned about a potential lapse, contact ABEM directly rather than assuming it will self-correct.

The stakes of a lapsed ABEM certification are real. Hospital credentialing bodies, locum agencies, and payer panels query ABEM certification status during credentialing reviews. A status that shows "not certified" during a credentialing check — even temporarily — can create privileges problems that take time to resolve.

How MyEMCert Interacts with Your State CME Obligations

Does MyEMCert completion count toward state CME hours?

MyEMCert activities may generate Category 1 CME credit that counts toward state license renewal requirements. The key word is "may" — whether a specific MyEMCert activity awards Category 1 credit and how that credit is documented varies by activity. Check the ABEM portal for confirmation of CME credit associated with your MyEMCert completion.

If Category 1 credit is awarded, it applies toward your state CME hour requirements in the same way any other Category 1 credit does — the state does not distinguish between CME earned through board maintenance activities and CME earned through other qualifying sources, provided the credit type is accepted.

California EM physicians: 50-hour state requirement on top of ABEM

California emergency medicine physicians face both the ABEM MyEMCert obligation and California's 50-hour biennial CME requirement. These are separate systems running on different clocks — ABEM's certification cycle and California's biennial license renewal.

Any Category 1 CME credit from MyEMCert activities can count toward California's 50-hour biennial total. But MyEMCert does not generate enough credit to satisfy the full California requirement, and it does not address California's mandatory topic obligations — specifically the one-time 12-hour pain management and terminally ill patient training that California requires of all physicians.

The full picture on California's requirements is in the California physician CME article. The net effect for a California EM physician: MyEMCert plus additional targeted California CME to cover both the hour total and the mandatory topics.

Texas EM physicians: CE Broker and ABEM in parallel

Texas emergency medicine physicians manage the ABEM MyEMCert cycle alongside Texas's 48-hour biennial CME requirement, with at least half being Category 1 or 1A, and Texas's push toward CE Broker electronic tracking.

ABEM-associated CME credits that are Category 1 can count toward the Texas 48-hour total. CE Broker reporting applies: if ABEM activities are reported to CE Broker, they appear in your Texas tracking dashboard. If they are not, you need to self-report.

The Texas picture is covered fully in the Texas physician CME requirements article.

The ABEM-Certified EM Physician's Credential Stack

State license(s), DEA, ABEM certification, ACLS/ATLS/BLS cards, and CAQH

A typical emergency medicine physician's credential stack looks like this:

Each of these has its own renewal date, its own portal, and its own documentation requirement. None of them are synchronized. An EM physician with two state licenses is running eight or nine separate administrative clocks.

What locums EM work adds to this list

For emergency medicine physicians doing locum work — a significant segment given EM's flexibility and high demand — the stack above expands with each new engagement. Each new facility requires credentialing, primary source verification, and facility-specific onboarding documentation. State licenses for each state of assignment. DEA registrations (some states require a state-controlled substance registration in addition to federal DEA). Facility-specific training modules.

The locum tenens credentialing article covers the mechanics of why each engagement starts the credentialing process over and what to do about it.

The complete renewal calendar for a typical EM physician

Putting it together: a California-licensed emergency medicine physician with a Texas license, active DEA registration, and ABEM certification through MyEMCert has:

• California license renewal every 2 years (50 CME hours, mandatory topics, $1,206 fee)
• Texas license renewal every 2 years (48 CME hours, Category 1/1A split, CE Broker tracking, $491.48 fee)
• DEA renewal every 3 years (plus MATE Act completion at first post-2023 renewal)
• ABEM MyEMCert ongoing question completion throughout the certification period
• ACLS renewal every 2 years
• ATLS renewal every 5 years
• CAQH re-attestation every 120 days

The California and Texas renewals are biennial but on different calendar clocks. The DEA renewal is every 3 years on its own clock. ABEM is ongoing. Life support card expirations scatter across a 2–5 year range. CAQH needs attention four times a year.

This is not an unusual credential stack for an EM physician. It is essentially the minimum.

MyEMCert vs. NBPAS for Emergency Medicine

NBPAS offers an alternative to ABEM certification at $189 for 2 years, with a requirement for specialty CME but without the longitudinal assessment structure. For emergency medicine physicians who find MyEMCert burdensome, NBPAS is an option some have moved toward.

The operational question is the same as it is for any specialty: which hospitals, health systems, and payer panels recognize NBPAS for credentialing purposes? EM has a higher proportion of physicians working at multiple facilities than most specialties, which means the ABEM-vs-NBPAS decision affects more credentialing relationships.

Before making the switch, confirm with every facility you work at — or plan to work at — that NBPAS is accepted in their medical staff bylaws. Some EM-heavy systems have made this change; many have not. For ABIM's parallel situation in internal medicine, the ABIM MOC article covers the NBPAS comparison in detail. For ABFM and family medicine, the ABFM article covers the same ground.

Caliber tracks ABEM MyEMCert status alongside state license renewals, DEA expiration, and life-support card expirations — giving emergency medicine physicians the complete credential map their specialty demands, not just a CME log.