Addiction Medicine Practice Pathway
Started by Sushirolls
Does this mean I need to acrue ~2000 hours of addiction work prior to 2025 to get board certified?
Would rotations in residency count?
Residency rotations don't count. You can see the requirements here: Addiction Medicine – American Board of Preventive Medicine
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Whelp, looks like no fellowship for me! Thanks!
No
If they accept your hours. I know some people here have successfully gone through the process, but there have also been plenty of posts here and on FB groups where ppls hours were rejected or reduced with no explanation. I met someone a few months ago who completed an accredited fellowship in addiction psychiatry, got boarded in addiction psych, and works at a prestigious university in addiction but got rejected by the ABPM. Went to school with another dude who works full-time in outpatient addiction, trained and boarded in addiction psych, also not approved. Really nutty. It doesn't seem clear at all what work qualifies, you have to pay almost $3000 and jump through all these hoops to apply, and then they can deny you for no clear reason. Your only recourse is to appeal and pay them more money.
Why/what’s the advantage of pursuing being boarded in addiction medicine if you’re boarded in addiction psych?
I asked the same question. Supposedly, it has to do with a strong belief in ABPM's mission and the differences in the philosophies of ABPM and AAAP. But perhaps these two are just seeking a vanity certification. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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I think they said it would probably be next month before scores are out.
Reviving this old threat to ask how realistic is it to count hours from regular inpatient or outpatient general psychiatry, assuming a fair amount of alcohol MAT, suboxone, nicotine cessation...and for inpatient alcohol intoxication/withdrawal along with other substance use disorders that come through regularly. It definitely doesn't sound fun to go through the process pay $3000 and get told hours won't count.
I haven’t looked since I completed this, but when I applied there was 0% chance of making it with typical work. You need places that are considered dedicated addiction work - inpatient rehab, IOP’s, etc
I would contact them directly to ask, but my experience was the same as Texas above. They wanted to see that you were working in an addiction-specific program (residential, addiction treatment services group, etc.). General inpatient and outpatient did not count, even if most patients were dealing with addiction.
Does a dedicated unit for medically assisted withdrawal count? Nothing with long-term treatment, just acute or subacute detox (and the medically appropriate level of psychotherapy for a unit like that)?
Their website makes it sound as though a fraction of general unit time would count, but that some component of the hours would need to be dedicated addiction medicine.
Work on a dedicated unit for medically assisted withdrawal should count.
The ABPM practice requirements limiting general practice hours seem sort of arbitrary. If a family doc has 40% suboxone patients he sees throughout his general clinic week, they can only count 400 something of them. But if he has a suboxone clinic 2 out of 5 days per week, there is no limit to how many hours count as it's an addiction specific job.
Maybe it's to prevent other specialties from padding their numbers. If you work in an average outpatient psych practice, community mental health, or inpatient unit, you treat a lot of addictions, but if it's not addiction specific practice setting sounds like a risk they will limit the hours.
Maybe it's to prevent other specialties from padding their numbers. If you work in an average outpatient psych practice, community mental health, or inpatient unit, you treat a lot of addictions, but if it's not addiction specific practice setting sounds like a risk they will limit the hours.
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Agree. In the end, the outcome is entirely dependent on their reviewers and whatever they decide. But I can tell you some of the time I counted was on a detox unit and it apparently got approved.
I also agree that the division is arbitrary. You can use up to 480 hours of general practice time if it included addiction work. Beyond that it needs to be addiction-specific work of some kind. I think you can also include research and admin time. They have an outline and a faq file on their website. One option would be structuring your job to reflect the addiction work you are doing. Take the example of the family doc above, as long as they schedule those suboxone patients into a separate "clinic" and their physician supervisor is willing to sign off on the form then there is nothing preventing them from doing so.
