Planning Regularly Scheduled Series

We accept applications for new CME activities throughout the year. Submit your CME Activity Planning Application at least six months prior to your activity date. Applications must be typed and can be submitted by email or fax.

If the activity director has financial relationships with companies relevant to your planned activity, the departmental CME committee —including at least two members without financial relationships — must assume responsibility for needs assessment, establishing objective(s), content development and speaker selection.

Non-UB entities pay a fee of $250 to start the program and $50 annually to maintain credit. UB entities pay no startup fee but must pay the $50 annual fee to maintain credit. Our office will invoice you once your series is approved.

Prepare notices, calendar postings or announcements that include:

1. The program’s educational objective(s)
2. Accreditation statement (provided by the CME Office)
   
3. Credit statement (provided by the CME Office)
   
4. Disclosure summary, including acknowledgment of commercial support (if applicable)

Send the CME Office all announcements for approval prior to printing and/or distributing electronically. Your publicity materials must include the information listed above to satisfy ACCME requirements. See the sample announcement to the right for an example.

When you post announcements to the school calendar, provide full details, including registration and contact information. Participants will need to register with you, not the CME office, to obtain credit.

The Speaker/Planner Declaration Form must be completed by all speakers.  

If the speaker has listed relevant relationships on this form, he/she has a potential conflict of interest (COI). A member of the CME committee who has no relationships with companies must complete the Faculty Disclosure Review Checklist Form describing how the COI was resolved to ensure the validity and independence of the activity’s content. You may consider strategies such as these or others to resolve bias:

• preview the content and assess the data on which recommendations are based
• advise the speaker to change the presentation’s focus, scope or objective — e.g., less emphasis on a particular therapy, procedure or drug and more discussion of the pros and cons of alternatives
• select a different speaker who is unbiased or one whose presentation a trusted UB faculty member heard at a national or significant professional meeting

The Activity Director or a member of the planning committee in attendance must sign the Activity Director Verbal Disclosure Form at each session.

If your activity is being supported by an unrestricted educational grant(s), the Letter of Agreement must be completed and signed with any supporting company, specifying the terms and conditions of the educational grant to your organization/unit. The Letter of Agreement must be signed by the:

• company providing support
• education provider (e.g., your department)
• accredited provider (UB CME office)

Commercial supporters may not pay expenses directly. Grants from commercial supporters must be sent directly to the education provider (e.g., your department) or accredited provider (UB CME office).

Must be submitted before each session:

• Speaker/Planner Declaration Form
• Faculty Review Checklist Form (if applicable)
• Letters of Agreement
  

Must be submitted after each session (within 30 days of activity date):

• Attendance Sign-in Sheet (Template provided by the CME Office)
• Activity Director Verbal Disclosure Form
  

Companies are considered supporters or grantors — not sponsors. Your activity’s sponsors include the education provider (e.g., your department) and the accredited provider (the CME office).

Obtain from speakers this form, which identifies financial relationships with companies whose products may be discussed at the activity.

Complete this form if a speaker reports having received financial support from any commercial source within the past 12 months.

This form needs to be signed by the Activity Director at each session, to ensure that the presenter disclosed any conflicts of interest to the audience.  

Complete this form if you receive an unrestricted educational grant from a commercial source.

For each session, provide the official attendance sheet issued by the CME Office for attendees to sign in with their CME ID numbers.

Inform the audience what the presenter has written on his or her disclosure form. The activity director, a designee from your professional staff or the speaker should verify one of the following for the audience:

• that all financial relationships with companies are identified on the disclosure form, or
  
• that the speaker has no relationships with any company whose products may be discussed — even generally — during the educational session, or
• that the speaker refused to disclose relevant financial relationships and CME will not be available for that speaker’s presentation

This declaration is required at all CME activities, including those without commercial support and with “internal” presenters.

Participants rely on CME transcripts to renew their privileges and in many cases to maintain board certification. So that we can provide them with the most accurate accounting of their CME credits as possible, you must submit your Attendance Sign-In Sheet and other required forms at least monthly to ensure proper credit is awarded.

CME credit for your activity will be revoked if you fail to comply with the monthly submission requirement, after 6 months of non-compliance. You will be required to re-apply with the CME office if you wish to re-establish credit.

The CME Office will email renewal instructions and required forms to the Activity Director and Activity Coordinator in May of each year. To comply with ACCME requirements and to maintain your ability to provide credit, you will be required to submit the following annual paperwork by the first week of August of each year:

• Regularly Scheduled Series Renewal Application
  
• Speaker/Planner Declaration Form for the activity director and all planners (note that forms for speakers must be submitted throughout the year)
  
• Summary of ACCME Commercial Support Requirements Form — must be reviewed and signed by the activity director and activity coordinator
  
• Annual Budget Report — If you have no budget, submit this form with “0” entered on the top line and bottom lines
  
• Evaluation Summary — You do NOT need to evaluate each session. Your annual summary will assess your series as a whole. The evaluation form issued by the CME Office includes several elements:
  
  •     assessment of clinical, educational or professional impact
  •     suggestions from participants
  •     rating of scientific validity and independence of content
    

If you plan to renew your series for the following year, the annual paperwork permits you to do so. You do not need to create a new, separate CME Activity Planning Application in order to renew.

Failure to submit the forms listed above by the due date will result in suspension of CME credit for your activity. Please notify the CME Office if you did not receive your email notification to renew your activity.

UB entities and non-UB entities must pay a $50 annual fee to maintain credit. An invoice for this fee will be included in the renewal email issued by the CME Office in May.