Maintain Certification

Core Competencies of Maintenance of Certification (MOC)

Through the ABAI MOC program, board certified physicians build six core competencies for quality patient care in their medical specialty. These competencies were first adopted by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and ABMS in 1999.


  • Patient Care and Procedural Skills: Provide care that is compassionate, appropriate and effective treatment for health problems and to promote health.
  • Medical Knowledge: Demonstrate knowledge about established and evolving biomedical, clinical and cognate sciences and their application in patient care.
  • Practice-based Learning and Improvement: Able to investigate and evaluate their patient care practices, appraise and assimilate scientific evidence and improve their practice of medicine.
  • Interpersonal and Communication Skills: Demonstrate skills that result in effective information exchange and teaming with patients, their families and professional associates (e.g. fostering a therapeutic relationship that is ethically sounds, uses effective listening skills with non-verbal and verbal communication; working as both a team member and at times as a leader).
  • Professionalism: Demonstrate a commitment to carrying out professional responsibilities, adherence to ethical principles and sensitivity to diverse patient populations.
  • Systems-based Practice: Demonstrate awareness of and responsibility to larger context and systems of health care. Be able to call on system resources to provide optimal care (e.g. coordinating care across sites or serving as the primary case manager when care involves multiple specialties, professions or sites).