About ABFM

A Higher Standard

Family Medicine Board Certification

As the trusted authority in board certification, the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) offers primary board certification and recertifications in family medicine; as well as Added Qualifications in Adolescent Medicine, Geriatric Medicine, Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Pain Medicine, Sleep Medicine, Sports Medicine, and Health Care Administration, Leadership and Management.

ABFM assesses family physicians against the highest standards of knowledge, professionalism, and ethics to support the delivery of safe and high-quality care for all patients. Physicians are held accountable for maintaining these standards through a career-long commitment to learning and professional development.

More than 100,000 family physicians are currently certified through ABFM. We are the 20th specialty and second largest of the 24 specialty boards which make up the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), with whom we work to establish common professional assessment standards.

ABFM also collaborates with educators and other family medicine organizations to identify high priority assessment needs which preserve the right for family physicians to practice professional self-regulation within the specialty.

Through our unwavering commitment to provide a fair, reliable, accurate, and objective certification process, ABFM works daily to deliver on its promise of enabling a higher standard of care beyond licensure for the physician and to the patients they serve.

Patient Promise

ABFM promises patients that the ABFM board-certified family physician they choose is held to the highest standard of knowledge, skills, and ethics to support the delivery of safe and high-quality care.

Physician Promise

ABFM promises physicians that the ABFM certificate they earn signifies their deep commitment to patients, their practice, and the profession. It is a meaningful measure of their professionalism, cognitive expertise, and commitment to improvement. By maintaining board certification, physicians help fulfill their responsibilities to society.

Mission

To safeguard the public through rigorous standards for residency education, initial and continuing board certification, support for improvement of health and health care, and research about family physicians and their practices. To accomplish this goal:

• We certify family physicians who have a commitment to professionalism, lifelong learning and self-assessment, cognitive expertise, and a dedication to improving the care they provide.
• We partner with Diplomates throughout their careers, across all communities and capacities they serve.
• We collaborate with organizations, specialties, and other partners who share our commitment to a higher standard than licensure, and to the improvement in health care and the health of the public.
• We set rigorous standards for ABFM Board Eligibility, support excellence and ongoing innovation in residency education, and promote continuous professional development.
• We advance professionalism in family medicine.
• We conduct research that advances the science of certification, monitors how family physicians’ practices evolve over time, improves the clinical and policy environment that family physicians practice in, and advances the scientific basis of family medicine.
• We support the development of future leaders for the specialty, the profession, and health care.