Meeting the Standard

Longitudinal Assessment Scoring

While the transition to longitudinal assessment means greater emphasis on learning and improvement, the ABPMR still has a mission to the public — to ensure our certification stands for quality patient care and that we are periodically assessing the physicians who hold it. Longitudinal assessment has been shown to improve memory retention and boost learning, but it still retains a summative assessment component — in other words, knowledge standard.

Your Performance & Reattempts

  • The ABPMR has updated the program design of Longitudinal Assessment for PM&R (LA-PM&R) to better align with formative assessment goals and a focus on credit for learning. Specifically, reattempt questions were introduced to the system, and we want to ensure diplomates understand these types of questions and how they affect your LA-PM&R performance.
  • Your performance in each quarter determines how many questions you see in the following quarter. If you answer a question incorrectly, you will see the same question (“reattempt”) in the next quarter.
  • You receive full credit for reattempt questions answered correctly. This design helps incentivize learning and improvement over time.
  • In quarter 4, article-based questions give you the opportunity to read important studies in the field and answer relevant questions. You choose the articles you want to be assessed on according to your interests and practice relevance. Reattempt questions are administered immediately following incorrect responses in quarter 4 and diplomates will receive full credit for correct reattempt responses.

Scoring Elements of LA-PM&R

Each Year's Questions
  • Quarter 1: 20 questions
  • Quarter 2: 15 new questions + any reattempts from Q1
  • Quarter 3: 15 new questions + any reattempts from Q2
  • Quarter 4: 10 article-based questions + any reattempts from Q3

Scoring Elements of LA-BIM, LA-PRM, and LA-SCIM

Each Year's Questions
  • Quarter 1: 15 questions
  • Quarter 2: 15 new questions + any reattempts from Q1
  • Quarter 3: 15 new questions + any reattempts from Q2
  • Quarter 4: 4 article-based questions + any reattempts from Q3

Time period

  • Four years (16 quarters)
  • Lowest four quarters dropped from scoring (allows for time off)
  • Fifth year participation optional for continued learning, Category 1 CME, and SA-CME

Year 5: Summative Decision

  • Look back at years 1-4, or 16 total quarters
  • Lowest four quarters are dropped from assessment (either low-performing quarters or those you elected not to take—which allows for leaves of absence and time away)
  • Summative assessment: You meet/don’t meet performance standard
  • If you didn’t meet the standard, you can apply to take the PM&R Re-Entry Examination (based on the blueprint and difficulty level of the Part I Examination) in years 4 and 5 of your continuing certification cycle

Please note: We are currently in the process of determining the performance standard for LA-PM&R, which requires a few years of LA-PM&R data. Once the standard is set, this will be communicated to all participants in an assessment cycle, and you’ll be able to measure your performance against the standard in real time.

Keep in mind

  • You will be getting feedback along the way
  • The year five summative decision will not be a surprise
  • If you are on the borderline, will be reaching out with information and resources for remediation before the five-year mark

Unscored Items

After answering each question, you will be notified whether your response was correct or incorrect. In some circumstances, you may be notified that a question is “unscored.” This means that a question is either being used for testing purposes to gather statistics on question performance or has been removed from the assessment. In either case, the question will not contribute to your overall score, regardless of correctness.