Starting Sept. 1, Texas physicians will need to track their continuing medical education online as a condition for license renewal.
Under a new legislative mandate, the Texas Medical Board (TMB) now requires a specific online platform – CE Broker – for logging CME and is encouraging physicians to familiarize themselves with the platform before their license renewal. The Texas Medical Association echoes that encouragement and has been learning about the system throughout the year to help educate members.
“I would recommend that physicians make sure that they log in, make sure that all of their information is correct, and make sure that they check often to make sure that everything is being timely filed specifically for their licensure date,” said Triwanna Fisher-Wikoff, MD, chair of the TMA Committee on Continuing Education.
The mandate comes because of Senate Bill 912, passed by the Texas Legislature in 2025. Under the law, Texas health care licensing entities must verify a license seeker’s continuing education through an electronic tracking system accessible to health care professionals, license entity staff, and CME providers.
Dr. Fisher-Wikoff acknowledges the law creates a new and unfamiliar hoop for physicians to jump through but says TMA will be instrumental in helping physicians through it.
To make sure their voices remain in the conversation, she encourages physicians to share their experiences, including any workarounds they’ve explored to address any technical implementation issues, with her and her committee members.
“If this isn’t working, then we need to come to the table and figure out a way to fix it,” Dr. Fisher-Wikoff said. “We will stay on top of any pain points or administrative burdens that this [new law] might cause.”
TMA staff have worked throughout 2026 to answer physician questions and communicate with representatives from Propelus, CE Broker’s parent company, to better understand and explain the platform to members. That groundwork has produced a slate of resources for members ahead of the Sept. 1 deadline.
A Knowledge Center article on the TMA website titled “What do I need to know about CE Broker and how can I get help with it?” acts as a primer (tma.tips/CEBrokerFAQ).
The article, which continues to evolve as TMA learns more, covers course completion documentation, walks physicians through the submission process with CE Broker screenshots, and explains how to view and edit what’s already been submitted. In response to physician questions, it also includes a list of activities that qualify as informal CME. (See “Tips for Tracking CME,” page 31.)
Beyond its publications and website, TMA has also reached out to county medical societies to raise physician awareness, Dr. Fisher-Wikoff says.
TMA added another benefit Aug. 1: For courses dating back to Sept. 1, 2024, it now automatically reports to CE Broker any CME courses physicians have taken through TMA. Once a physician creates a CE Broker account, those credits upload automatically from a centralized TMA database, capturing courses taken through the TMA Education Center or in person at conferences such as TexMed, last fall’s Business of Medicine Conference, or the upcoming Leadership Summit, set for Sept. 17-19 in Irving.
TMB has also been preparing physicians for the transition. According to TMB President Sherif Z. Zaafran, MD, its outreach commenced with a heads-up in his presidential newsletter that went out to physicians in February, followed by direct email to all physicians in May specifically covering the new CME tracking process.
In collaboration with Propelus, TMB also hosted a pair of webinars – in May and July – for physicians wanting to learn more, and TMB’s recording of the May webinar is viewable via licensees’ MyTMB accounts (via the “CE Training” icon). It also maintains a webpage with specifics on the new tracking process, including a list of frequently asked questions (tma.tips/TMBCE BrokerFAQ).
Two short tutorials on the TMB YouTube channel walk physicians through CE Broker basics:
• A five-minute video on creating an account, reviewing the credentials overview page (which includes deadlines), and checking which CME requirements have been met versus what’s still pending (tma.tips/CEBrokerStarterVideo); and
• A four-minute tutorial on how to self-report CME within CE Broker (tma.tipsCEBrokerReportingVideo).
Pain points and workarounds
Mark Hormann, MD, chair of the TMA Subcommittee for Academic Physicians, initially worried that the implementation of Senate Bill 912’s new requirements would be a “pain point” for physicians – particularly those who haven’t followed TMA and TMB messaging about how to prepare.
“It’s an administrative hassle, just like a lot of things are,” he said. “I would just reiterate to physicians, especially the ones that are renewing at the end of this year, do this sooner rather than later, because it’s not super streamlined yet.”
Dr. Hormann, whose renewal comes up in November, has questions about the new system’s interoperability with certain online continuing education platforms physicians may be using to access courses. He’s also concerned that, as of this writing, state-mandated CME courses have not been fully integrated into the system – including pain management and forensic evidence courses, which carry specific rules about which specialties must take them and how often (texmed.org/CMEChanges); a TMB spokesperson says the agency is creating solutions for “pain points” like that one as it identifies them.
Dr. Fisher-Wikoff has also been getting up to speed. After registering – a process she called reasonably intuitive – she entered her completed courses and checked whether those she took through the Texas Academy of Family Physicians (TAFP), which is registered with CE Broker and reports CME to the platform, actually counted toward her required 48 hours.
What she found, in what the Fort Worth family physician called “one of my personal learning curves,” was that her TAFP courses appeared in CE Broker but weren’t being counted toward her hours. She said she ultimately uploaded them manually by downloading her American Academy of Family Physicians transcript, which also recorded those TAFP credits.
Some physicians reaching out to TMA have wondered whether upgrading to one of CE Broker’s paid tiers would help with the submission process.
“We are the allies when it comes to the physicians here in Texas,” Dr. Fisher-Wikoff said of TMA. “It’s going to be our voices … that are going to be able to go to [TMB] and say, ‘Here’s what’s working, here’s what’s not working. What can we do to fix this for our physicians?’”
Dr. Zaafran notes TMB has communicated with Propelus about making sure physicians using the free account tier have a smooth user experience. CE Broker will handle the initial verification that physicians are meeting their CME requirements – replacing the physician audits TMB previously conducted – but the medical board will be able to step in should there be a discrepancy between CE Broker’s count and a physician’s count.
He adds TMB, in implementing a legislative mandate, welcomes “healthy suggestions” to improve the experience for all Texas physicians renewing their licenses.
“I know that we all feel like we’re overwhelmed with regulations that we have to meet,” he added. “Honestly, if you take it in stride,” referring to the CME logging process, “it took me about 15 minutes to get it done myself.”
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Phil West
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Phil West is a writer and editor whose publications include the Los Angeles Times, Seattle Times, Austin American-Statesman, and San Antonio Express-News. He earned a BA in journalism from the University of Washington and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin’s James A. Michener Center for Writers. He lives in Austin with his wife, children, and a trio of free-spirited dogs.