Email NCMB
Toll Free - (800) 253.9653
Yes. Since maintenance or acquisition of CME may not be feasible while you are deployed to a combat zone or in support of a contingency operation, the Board will waive your CME requirement during that time. Please send the Registration Department a copy of your deployment and/or discharge orders or other documentation that shows you are supporting the armed forces so we may, at your written request, reset your three-year CME cycle at the end of the waiver period.
Your three-year CME cycle is calculated based on the CME rule (Subchapter 32R – Continuing Medical Education requirements).
Questions regarding your CME? .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Your current CME hours can be accessed on our website. Visit www.ncmedboard.org and click on “Update Licensee Info Page” in the green Quick Links menu on the right. Log in using your FileID# and date of birth. The tab “Preferences/CME” will allow you to view the CME hours in your current three-year cycle.
If you have questions or need to make changes, please .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
All CME documentation should be kept for 6 years.
Please complete your renewal, and then email the Board. Click here and select “Questions about Annual Renewal” to send your message to the correct department. Corrections to the CME cycle or hours from previous years can be made after the renewal is complete.
Category 1 hours are educational provider-initiated CME given by an ACCME or AOA accredited organization. You will typically receive a certificate from the accredited CME provider stating how many Category 1 hours you received for that particular course.
Category 2 hours are physician initiated and self-reported by the licensee on an hour-for-hour basis. Please see the CME rule to see what’s included in Category 2.
Your hours can be logged on our CME logging form
Presentations or promotions by pharmaceutical company sales representatives specific for, and promoting, one particular drug; as for instance, when a pharmaceutical company sales representative comes to a physician’s office with drug samples and provides brochures and information regarding that specific drug is drug sales promotion; MAY NOT be claimed as CME.
Seminars, lectures, or presentations sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, in which the treatment of a medical/surgical condition is discussed in an objective scientific manner, during which treatment with a drug manufactured by the pharmaceutical company sponsoring the presentation is discussed, may be considered Category 2 CME. Physicians should use educated and thoughtful judgment regarding the content of the seminar, lecture or presentation. If the physician believes they were provided unbiased, balanced and objective information regarding medical practice, the mere sponsorship or subsidization of the seminar by a pharmaceutical company would not preclude claiming appropriate Category 2 CME credit.
Volunteering at a clinic alone does not count as CME but clinic directors or volunteer physicians who provide mentoring, teaching, student assessment and consultation-type activity may claim the hours directly (explicitly) involved in that activity as “Physician-Initiated” Category 2 CME hours.
Your 3 year cycle depends on when you were licensed. The 3 year cycle shall run from the physician’s birthday beginning in the year 2001 or the first birthday following initial licensure, whichever occurs later.
Residents and Fellows who are enrolled in ACGME- or AOA-accredited graduate medical education programs are exempt from the requirement, until the first birthday following completion of their training program. During your online renewal there is an EXEMPT box to check, which will reset your CME cycle.
Please send your questions via .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) to the Board’s renewal department.
Yes. As long as you have an active license to practice medicine in the state of North Carolina you are required to abide by the CME rule, which requires 150 hours over a 3 year period, with at least 60 hours qualifying as Category 1.
No. Licensees must ensure that they earn a total of 150 CME hours by the end of the current three-year cycle, with at least 60 hours being Category 1 CME.
You receive 90 Category 2 CME hours for passing or recertifying a specialty board. Those 90 hours would fulfill your Category 2 requirement for the 3 year cycle.
For publishing an article you would count the time you spent researching and writing on an hour-for-hour basis. So if you researched for five hours and wrote for two hours you would get seven hours Category 2 CME.
For teaching you would get the time you spent preparing and also the time you spent teaching. This should also be calculated on an hour-for-hour basis and counts as Category 2 CME.
Any hours that you put in to receive the Physician’s Recognition Award that also qualify as relevant may be used. The Physician’s Recognition Award and similar awards, taken by themselves, cannot be accepted as documentation.
No. The CME hours earned within a three-year cycle can be used only to fulfill the requirements for that cycle.
Documentation for Category 1 CME (provider-initiated) can be as simple as keeping a dated record of your attendance at or participation in relevant CME programs conducted by ACCME or AOA accredited institutions, along with a file of receipts or certificates verifying the information recorded.
Documentation for Category 2 CME (physician-initiated) can be simply keeping a list of relevant CME activities initiated by you and noting the nature of the activity, the date, and the hours earned.
Licensees should not mail CME documentation to the Board unless specifically asked to. Please maintain your own CME records, so that you can furnish them to the Board in the event of a CME audit. You will report hours annually during the license renewal process.
The CME used to satisfy the North Carolina CME requirement must be relevant to your actual practice of medicine.The Board considers CME that has a direct impact on the care of patients to be practice-relevant.