Pathways and session formats

After identifying your CME activity type and confirming it meets requirements, you can move forward with choosing the credit application pathway that best fits your CME activity.

Three pathway options are available to choose from during the selection process: simple pathway, advanced pathway and ALSO/BLSO pathway.

  • Simple pathway: Designed for a single activity occurring once over one or more consecutive days, but does not repeat content and is continuous.

  • Advanced pathway: Designed for a pre-planned set of activities that cover various topics that relate to a unifying theme, or activities with repeated content (multi-site only). Providers must enter at least one session when submitting an advanced pathway credit application. The remainder of the sessions must be entered, as the information becomes available, in order to gain approval for each session.

  • ALSO/BLSO pathway: Designed for Basic and Advanced Life Support courses developed by the American Academy of Family Physicians and hosted by CME provider organizations.

For further guidance on selecting the correct application pathway review the application pathway tree. If your activity structure is not reflected, or you're unsure which pathway aligns with your activity, please email us.

Activity types Simple pathway Advanced pathway ALSO/BLSO pathway
Description Designed for a single activity occurring once over one or more consecutive days, but does not repeat content, and is continuous.  Designed for a pre-planned set of activities that cover various topics that relate to a unifying theme, or activities with repeated content (multi-site/date only).  Designed for ALSO courses, ALSO instructor courses and BLSO courses.
Live

X

Examples include: single live conference, training or webinar

X

Examples include a live series or live multi-site/date

X

Single live courses only
Knowledge Self-Assessment (KSA), live

X

Single live KSA

X

KSA multi-site or a single live activity with a KSA add-on

  
Enduring materials

X

Examples include a single enduring webcast or monograph

X

Examples include an enduring series of videos or monographs

  
Medical journals   X  
Performance improvement X (must be part of a blended learning activity)  
Point of care X Point of care  
Blended learning   X  

Session formats

Once an application pathway has been selected, and the credit application has been started, CME providers will need to submit sessions for the session formats included within the CME activity. For each session, you must include titles and topic-specific learning objectives for all content covered within the session. For Performance Improvement and Point of Care, you must describe how you will guide a learner through each stage/step of the process. The session formats are:

  • In-person, live (could include online)
  • Online only, live
  • Knowledge self-assessment (KSA), live
  • Enduring materials, self-study
  • Medical journals
  • Performance improvement
  • Point of care

Confused about the difference between in person live vs. online live formats? Learn more about our live formats and our credit calculation and credit terms.