Maintaining Certification

Biennial Continuing Education (CE) Requirement:

The healthcare industry is constantly evolving. Changes in patient care, technology and quality requirements make keeping abreast with continuing education important to remaining qualified as a CIIP.

Because continual learning is important, ABII has a continuing education (CE) requirement for diplomates. The requirement is the successful completion and reporting of 24 credits every two years on or before December 31. This biennial CE requirement must be completed or certification is dropped.

CE activity content or topics must align with the most current ABII Test Content Outline at the beginning of your biennium which can be found at abii.org.

CE reporting is completed on a diplomate’s online account located at www.abii.org.

Newly Certified:

For individuals having just passed the exam, their two-year CE reporting cycle begins on January 1 of their first full year of certification. For example, and individual having passed the exam in April 2016 will begin their two-year cycle on January 1, 2017 and report CE on or before December 31, 2018.

Annual Renewal Requirement:

Annual renewal fees of $70.00 are due by December 31 of each year. Renewal payments received after the deadline incur include late fees.

The late fee for payments/CE received between January 1 and March 31 is $20.

During years in which a diplomate is required to report CE, both the CE and annual renewal fee must be completed during the same transaction on the diplomate’s online account located at www.abii.org. (For example, a diplomate cannot pay the annual renewal fee on one day and then report CE later the same week.)

If CE is not reported and/or annual renewal payment is not received before March 31, certification will be discontinued.

10-Year Requirements:

Because of accelerating advancements in technology and growing capabilities in the healthcare field, the idea of “Once certified, forever qualified” no longer meets the expectations of patients, employers, or the profession. Today, this is more accurately described as “Once certified, forever learning, evolving and developing as a qualified professional.” ABII embraces continuous quality improvement as the expectation for diplomates and the requirements for maintaining certification reflect that philosophy.

After successful completion of the requirements to obtain initial certification and the CIIP credential, individuals are required to periodically report completion of continuing education and, every ten years, complete additional requirements to document ongoing qualifications in imaging informatics. The Ten-Year Requirements are designed to document continued qualifications through a flexible approach by allowing diplomates to select from several options.

The option selected by the diplomate must be completed within 36 months of the compliance due date. Diplomates must submit documentation supporting completion of the requirements to ABII for review during a 1-year compliance period. The compliance period is the one-year period immediately preceding the end of the tenth year. For example, those first certified in 2009 must submit documentation supporting completion of the Ten-Year Requirements in 2018, those first certified in 2010 must submit documentation supporting completion of the requirements in 2019, and so forth.

The four options for the 10-Year Requirements include: Practice, Education, Research, and Examination. Only one of the four options must be completed during the compliance period and pre-approval by ABII of the activity selected by the diplomate is not required.

Each option is described in the 10-Year Certification Requirements document.