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Become a member and receive career-enhancing benefits

Our top priority is providing value to members. Your Member Services team is here to ensure you maximize your ACS member benefits, participate in College activities, and engage with your ACS colleagues. It's all here.

Become a Member
Become a member and receive career-enhancing benefits

Our top priority is providing value to members. Your Member Services team is here to ensure you maximize your ACS member benefits, participate in College activities, and engage with your ACS colleagues. It's all here.

Membership Benefits
ACS
Tools

CME Accreditation Platform

Accreditation for Education

Welcome to the American College of Surgeons' (ACS) CME Platform!

The ACS provides a unique opportunity allowing medical societies, and other education providers, a cost-effective way to participate in the Joint Providership of its educational offerings. In doing so, surgeons and other healthcare professionals can participate in the highest quality educational activities and receive AMA PRA Category 1 CME credit™ for their participation.

In offering this joint providership opportunity, the College’s goal is to ensure that educational programs designed for licensed medical physicians meet the criteria of the accreditation requirements of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education.

It is strongly recommended that you visit this webpage each time you apply for joint providership of a program. This will ensure that you have the most current information and documents and will avoid any unnecessary duplication of work.

The ACS is an accredited provider of CME under the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME).

What Qualifies?

The ACS provides accreditation for the following educational formats:

  • Live meetings
  • Live internet courses
  • Internet enduring materials
  • Journals
  • Regularly Scheduled Series (RSS)
  • Manuscript Reviews
  • Other “non-traditional” learning opportunities (social media learning)

 

Request for CME Credit

To receive accreditation through the ACS for your educational activity: 

  • Submit the CME Activity Form through the CME Process Platform prior to the start of the planning of your educational activity. This step can be completed at any time, as far in advance as possible, before the planning of your activity begins. You will receive an e-mail from CPDA@facs.org after a review of your submission, detailing the next steps

ACS Joint Providership Timeline

  • Request for CME
    Begin application by submitting CME activity form 4-6 months before program begins.
  • ACS review and approval of CME Activity Form
    Allow 3 business days for review.
  • CME Application and Supporting Documents  
    Complete CME application 3 months in advance of program’s scheduled start date.
  • ACS to Review and Provide Tentative Approval of CME Activity
    Please allow CPDA up to 14 business days to review your CME application.
  • Approval of CME Activity
  • Applicant must submit final program materials for review to ensure compliance with ACCME at least 15 days in advance of the activity start date.
  • CPDA will review and request any necessary edits before granting final approval for pending CME activity.

ACS may request slide presentations for review and approval. Please keep all slides for your records.

Post-Activity Reports Timeline

Attendance List

  • Live Event: Submit first attendance list 30 days after the program and second attendance list for those who claimed credit days 31- 60 days after the program.
  • All other events: Submit 30 days after the activity ends.

PARS Data:
At the time of the upload of your attendance list provide the:

  1. Total attendance number for MD and Non-member registrants
  2. Total Revenues

Evaluation Data: Summary of evaluations

  • Session Evaluation Data
    Submit all session evaluations along with the attendance list.
  • Post-activity Data:
    Submit Post-activity survey results 90 days.

For questions contact cpda@facs.org.

Fee Structure

To view the fee structure, please visit the CDPA Fees webpage.

Resources

The Continuous Professional Development Accreditation (CPDA) Section regularly updates CME-relevant resources, in order to best assist with the development, planning, and implementation of your educational activities.

If You Have Questions, We Have Answers

Review our FAQ on the CME Platform.