Sports Medicine Longitudinal Assessment

If you hold a Certificate of Added Qualification (CAQ) in Sports Medicine and plan to maintain your certification, you will transition to a 5-Year Cycle for maintaining certification in the year your 10-year exam requirement is due. If you gain initial certification in Sports Medicine in 2027 or after, you will begin 5-Year Cycle participation in the year after gaining initial certification. Going forward, you can expect to begin a new cycle every five (5) years to maintain your Sports Medicine CAQ.

5-Year Cycle Requirements

The 5-Year Cycle includes continuous compliance with ABFM Guidelines for Professionalism, Licensure, and Personal Conduct, continuous Family Medicine Certification (for ABFM Diplomates), and ongoing participation in cognitive assessment.

1. Certification Exam: Participate in longitudinal assessment or opt to take the one-day exam.
2. Professionalism and Licensure: Continuously comply with ABFM’s Guidelines for Professionalism, Licensure, and Personal Conduct, which includes maintaining active, valid, and full license(s) to practice medicine in the United States or Canada.
3. Continuous ABFM Family Medicine certification (ABFM Diplomates only)
4. Annual Fee: Submit annual certification fee.

Sports Medicine Certification Longitudinal Assessment (SPMED-LA) Overview

• You will receive 17 timed questions each quarter for a total of 204 questions over three to four years.
• Questions are multiple-choice and you will have five minutes to answer each question.
• You can choose to answer all 17 questions at one time, or space them out during the quarter.
• You can use references and you will receive immediate feedback and critiques for each question answered.
• You must continuously maintain ABFM Family Medicine certification while participating in SPMED-LA. (ABFM Diplomates only*)
• You must submit annual fees while participating in SPMED-LA. (ABFM Diplomates only*)

* Physicians who have registered for SPMED-LA through a cosponsoring board (American Board of Emergency Medicine, American Board of Pediatrics, or American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation) must continuously meet the requirements of their cosponsoring board while participating in longitudinal assessment.

Eligibility

Continuing Certification

Beginning in 2027, if you currently hold a Sports Medicine CAQ, you will complete registration for the 5-Year Cycle in the fall of the year prior to your 10th year of certification. Completion of the registration process automatically enrolls you in SPMED-LA* and initiates the continuous 5-Year Cycle process for maintaining certification. Participation in SPMED-LA begins in January of your exam due year.

Example: Sports Medicine examination due 12/31/2027. Register for 5-Year Cycle in Fall 2026; Begin 5-Year Cycle 1/1/2027.

Initial Certification

If you gain initial Sports Medicine CAQ certification in 2027 or after, you will complete registration for the 5-Year Cycle upon certification. Completion of the registration process automatically enrolls you in SPMED-LA* and initiates the continuous 5-Year Cycle process for maintaining certification. Participation in SPMED-LA begins in January of year following your initial certification.

Example: Sports Medicine initial certification 7/13/2027. Register for 5-Year Cycle in Fall 2027; Begin 5-Year Cycle 1/1/2028.

Note: A successful traditional, half-day examination is required for all physicians to gain initial Sports Medicine certification. SPMED-LA is only an option for maintaining continuous certification.

Requirements for eligible physicians to enroll include:

• Submission and approval of 5-Year Cycle registration by the published deadline.
• Continuous compliance with ABFM Guidelines for Professionalism, Licensure, and Personal Conduct.
• Continuous ABFM Family Medicine certification (ABFM Diplomates only)

Non-ABFM Participants

Physicians who enroll in SPMED-LA through a cosponsoring board (American Board of Emergency Medicine, American Board of Pediatrics, or American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation) will be required to complete registration through their home board. Initial and continued eligibility will be determined by the home board. ABFM will receive and load approved physicians from cosponsoring boards. While non-ABFM physicians will not be required to complete ABFM’s full registration process, they will complete a brief registration process to complete their enrollment in SPMED-LA before participation may begin.

Diplomates are encouraged to complete registration early in the available window to avoid late fees and ensure the maximum period of time to complete the first quarter of questions.

*If you prefer not to participate in SPMED-LA, you may opt to withdraw from longitudinal assessment after completing the registration process. In this case, you would be required to take and pass the traditional half-day Sports Medicine examination in year four or five of your 5-Year Cycle to maintain certification.

ADA Accommodations

ABFM provides reasonable accommodations in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). If necessary, you may request accommodations after the application process is completed by submitting a written request to accommodations@theabfm.org. More information regarding accommodations will be available in the registration process.

Format

During the longitudinal assessment, you will receive 17 multiple-choice questions per quarter that cover a breadth of sports medicine topics. You will have five minutes to answer each question, and they may be answered online, anywhere, at any time within the SPMED-LA delivery platform. The complete assessment includes answering 204 questions over a maximum of four years. When you complete 204 questions and achieve a passing score within the four-year window, you will meet your exam requirement to maintain your CAQ certification.  Please note, questions are considered secure and should not be copied, printed, or reproduced in any other way before, during, or after the assessment.

Deferred Questions

Deferred questions are questions that were available to be answered in a given quarter, but never opened. While these questions do carry forward to be presented in the future, it is important to note that if more than 68 questions are deferred, it will not be possible to answer the full 204 question assessment in the allotted four-year window. Any questions that are not attempted will be counted as incorrect.

Only 17 questions will be presented in each quarter, so deferring questions will ultimately result in completing your assessment in year four. You cannot answer more than 17 questions in a quarter to make up for previously deferred questions.

Answering Questions

The longitudinal assessment platform delivers 17 questions each quarter providing you with flexibility to complete the entire process in as little as three years or a maximum of four years. The table below lists the beginning and ending date for each quarter that you will have to answer your questions.

Participation Guidelines

To maintain your eligibility for the longitudinal assessment, you are required to adhere to several guidelines.

​Minimum Answered Questions

All participants must answer a minimum of 187 total questions by the conclusion of the maximum 4 years to complete the assessment. Those who do not do this will be removed from SPMED-LA after the quarter in which it becomes impossible to reach 187 answered questions. The one-day examination would need to be completed by the end of the 5-Year Cycle to continue Sports Medicine certification.

Primary Certification

For ABFM Diplomates, participating in the longitudinal assessment requires continuous ABFM Family Medicine certification. This includes completion of all ongoing requirements necessary for Family Medicine certification (Professionalism, Certification Activities, CME, and Fees).

Annual CAQ Fees

For ABFM Diplomates, participating in the longitudinal assessment requires annual payments of process fees. Non-payment of fees can result in temporary blocked access or permanent removal from the longitudinal assessment.

Optional Withdraw

If you choose, you may withdraw from the longitudinal assessment during the first year of participation with no penalty. If you withdraw any time after the sixth quarter has ended, it will count as having used an exam attempt.

Exam Blueprint

The Sports Medicine exam is developed in conjunction with the American Boards of Emergency Medicine, Pediatrics, and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. For more information about content included on the Sports Medicine exam, click here.

Scoring and Performance Feedback

You will receive an immediate response indicating whether your answer is correct or incorrect, as well as the rationale and the percentage of respondents who answered the question correctly. You will have the opportunity to select a confidence and relevance rating for each question.

After completing year one of the longitudinal assessment, an estimated scaled score will be provided to monitor your performance over the duration of the assessment. You can also view the percentage of questions answered correctly in each blueprint category to identify gaps in knowledge and areas for improvement.

Final Score Report

All questions included in the longitudinal assessment will be marked as correct or incorrect. After all 204 questions are scored, your raw score will be transformed into a scaled score, which accounts for the difficulty of the questions you received. This ensures that no Diplomate is unfairly advantaged or disadvantaged by receiving a relatively easy or difficult set of questions. Your final scaled score and a detailed report will be delivered in the quarter following your completion of 204 questions or the end of the fourth year, whichever comes first. To continue your certification, you must meet the minimum passing standard, which is set at the same standard as the one-day exam.