Certified Medical Director (CMD)

Understanding the California Requirement (AB 749) and the Process to Become, Maintain, or Reinstate the Certified Medical Director (CMD) Credential

California AB 749 - HSC §1261.4

California Assembly Bill AB 749 requires nursing home medical directors in California to be certified by PALTmed (previously the American Board of Post-Acute and Long Term Care Medicine). This bill would prohibit a skilled nursing facility from contracting with a person as a medical director if the person is not, or will not be within 5 years of the date of initial hire as the facility’s medical director, certified by PALTmed, or an equivalent organization as determined by the department, as a Certified Medical Director. Under the bill, a medical director already employed in a skilled nursing facility as of January 1, 2022, would have until January 1, 2027, to become a Certified Medical Director.  (Full text.)

Update: The Certified Medical Director (CMD) program is now a program of PALTmed and will be overseen by the PALTmed Certification Council. Learn More

CALTCM can help you on your journey to becoming a Certified Medical Director and meet recertification requirements.

  1. Although membership is not required, members receive many benefits. Please consider joining CALTCM to stay up to date and join a community of like-minded professionals working together to improve the quality of care in California's post-acute and long-term care communities.
  2. CALTCM can help you fulfill your CME and CMD hour requirements, within California, with the following programs:
    1. CALTCM’s Annual Meeting
    2. Leadership in Management in Geriatrics (LMG)
    3. Other educational courses: On-demand Education, CALTCM SNF 2.0®, and webinars!

About the Process

The process to become a CMD is an education and experience model. There is no test for certification.  Candidates for certification must meet eligibility under three steps, each of which includes education and experience qualification requirements.  Candidates must meet all eligibility requirements under each of those options in both areas of experience in practice, and in education to become certified. Eligibility is documented on an application that can be downloaded by clicking the link above.

While candidates must meet the clinical experience and medical director experience for CMD certification, CMD applications may be submitted for consideration of a letter of education eligibility even before the years of medical director experience are completed.  The one-time application review fee will be held with a pending application for up to 5-years. 

If you need additional CME credits to meet step-2 or step-3 education requirements, please take a moment to review CALTCM's Educational Programs.

For questions about CMD certification, please contact PALTmed.

Core Curriculum on Medical Direction in PALTC

The Core Curriculum on Medical Direction in PALTC is the course required of all applicants for initial CMD certification. PALTmed conducts this course.

Learn about Certification
CMD Verification