Creative Ways to Use CME Money for Physicians
- Nisha Mehta, MD
- May 30
- 8 min read
Updated: Jun 2
Most physicians receive a CME allowance from their employer. These CME funds are provided to help doctors complete necessary continuing education requirements in order to maintain their medical license. CME allowances are often provided as a “use it or lose it” benefit, and we often get questions in our online physician community about unique ways doctors have found to use their leftover annual funds before they expire. Below are some of our favorite creative ways physicians have found to use their CME money.
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Creative Ways to Use CME Money
Use CME to Attend a Health Tech or Industry Conference
Attending a health tech or industry conference can be a great way to stay up to date with the latest advancements in medical studies, digital health innovations, and emerging trends in healthcare. Lectures can offer CME credits on unique topics, show floors can introduce new tools and solutions to optimize your clinical work, and the overall conference provides numerous opportunities to network to find advisory roles, consulting positions, and new connections. We even have opportunities to connect with other PSG members at conferences we’ve partnered with.
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HLTH has partnered with us to offer PSG members steeply discounted registration at $1,500 (over 50% off normal registration prices) at their annual HLTH and ViVE conferences, as well as CME, dedicated networking events, and potential opportunities for free registration in exchange for participating in our Physician Roundtables consulting opportunities. Learn more about our Physicians @ HLTH program.
Pri-Med offers PSG members $30 registration to their conferences designed for physicians practicing in family medicine, internal medicine, and general practice. In-person conference opportunities include Atlanta, Dallas, Nashville, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and more. Use code PSG30CME with our affiliate link to explore conferences and register.
If you’re interested in potential PSG meetups through conferences hosted by these organizations, make sure you sign up for the PSG weekly newsletter for alerts on upcoming events and ways to connect.
Book a Destination CME Getaway
Grouping a CME conference with a vacation to a desirable destination is a great way to relax and unwind outside of work while knocking out some of your required CME credits. CME money can often be used to cover flights, hotels, and conference registration. By setting aside time outside of the conference schedule or scheduling extra days before or after the conference, you can travel to some bucket list places using CME funds to help cover some of the costs.
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The American Educational Institute (AEI) offers destination based AMA PRA Category 1 CME every week of the year in 50+ locations, like Hawaii, Aspen, Aruba and more through several available courses, including The Medical-Dental-Legal Update, The Musculoskeletal Imaging Update, The Radiology Update & The Dental Update. They offer set lecture schedules (M-F and Th-M) in the comfort of your hotel room while in the interactive company of your peers and AEI corporate staff. Use your CME stipend or potentially write off associated expenses. Learn more with our affiliate link and use promo code PSG2025 to get $150 off any course tuition.
Cover Educational Subscriptions and Memberships
Some medical informational platforms offer you CME while you look things up and learn throughout your clinical responsibilities. CME funds can often be used to help pay for subscriptions to these platforms. Other subscriptions and membership you may be able to use CME funds for include association dues, organization memberships, and podcast subscriptions. Many physicians have reported in our salary and compensation negotiation database that their employers also include state license applications/fees as an allowable expense for CME funds.
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UpToDate offers trusted, evidence-based clinical, drug, patient, and member content to support all health professionals. Physician Side Gigs, through its collaboration with Wolters Kluwer offers a discount on personal UpToDate subscriptions as a special member perk. PSG physician members can save 15% and trainees get 20% off on an annual or longer subscription to UpToDate! Join our physician online community to get the code to access this exclusive perk.
OpenEvidence is the leading AI-powered medical information platform for physicians and now offers free CME. It is currently used in over 7000 hospitals and care centers, and over 150 countries, serving millions of conversations per week. It is free and unlimited for physicians (so you can save more of your CME funds for other options discussed), and built from the ground up to give trustable, verifiable information. Every response is grounded in the high quality medical literature, spanning everything from clinical trials to meta-reviews to guidelines. Sign up today through our affiliate link.
Get a Certification or Learn a New Skill
Physicians, especially those in private practice, may be interested in expanding their clinical skills for, and outside of, patient interactions. Consider using your CME allowance to grow your expertise within your specialty, learn about artificial intelligence, or increase your entrepreneurial acumen by taking business courses to help you better manage your practice.
CME money can often be used for online courses for new topics or certifications (such as integrative medicine or culinary medicine), board review courses, and even leadership courses to help you grow your roles within your institution or organization. Check with your institution to see if you are allowed to use CME funds for these purposes.
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eMedCert offers online ACLS/BLS/PALS certification/recertification through our affiliate link with 15% off using discount code PSG15. There is CME credit available. Please note online only courses are generally not AHA certified, and some hospitals will not accept non-AHA cards. They offer a refund if your hospital doesn't accept it, but to save you time, check with your hospital or employer if you are not sure what your hospital requirements are.
Wolters Kluwer offers PSG members 15% off Lippincott products, which include print books and journals, eBooks and online subscriptions, digital courseware, and anatomical charts. Use code WPHYS15 with our affiliate link.
Coursera has something for everyone with over 5,800 courses, professional certificates, and degrees. A few to consider include Design and Interpretation of Clinical Trials, Writing in the Sciences, and Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare. Use our affiliate link to get started.
Build a Better Financial & Wellness Foundation
CME money may also be used for educational courses or retreats on financial wellbeing and personal wellness, including burnout prevention. While these programs are outside of the traditional courses physicians think of for CME, they are increasingly becoming CME eligible as they help support physician sustainability through topics such as managing work-life balance.
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Charting Champions is an online physician-only program to help you create a sustainable clinical day within the environments in which you work. The foundational modules help you complete your charting after every patient, run closer to time, manage interruptions and empty those in-baskets as fast as possible. Physicians in the US and Canada have an opportunity to review and reflect on course content to collect CME credits, and you may be entitled to CME reimbursement for the course. Learn more and save $150 when you register through our affiliate link.
White Coat Investor offers some personal finances courses/conferences with a wellness component that offer up to 16 CME credits. These courses present you with comprehensive content in an organized and easy to understand format, with nice short videos you can reference forever. Explore CME courses with our affiliate link.
Learn a New Language with Your CME Funds
CME money can often be used to learn medical Spanish or another second language. This can allow you to enhance your ability to help or improve communication and thus treatment for a more diverse patient population in your area. Many employers allow the use of CME funds for these purposes, even if they don’t formally offer CME, but you should check your institutional or employer policies before assuming it will be covered.
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Baselang offers unlimited one on one Spanish tutoring. Use our affiliate link with discount code physicians10 for $10/month off.
For almost 30 years, Rosetta Stone has been helping users build fluency and confidence to learn new languages with courses for 25 different languages to help. Use our affiliate link to get started.
Tips for Using Your CME Funds
Make sure to check the guidelines for your employer’s CME policy. Rules for CME allowances can vary significantly by employer. Not all the CME options above may qualify for reimbursement through your specific policy. Look for covered expenses and any limits for reimbursement before making any purchases you plan to use funds for. In particular, double check:
Eligible expenses for reimbursement through your CME allowance
Required documentation and submission timelines for reimbursement
Expiration dates on your available CME funds
Consider exploring a variety of the CME opportunities. Utilizing different CME options mentioned above throughout the year can help make the continuing education process more enjoyable and provide the best fit with your schedule. A live conference or CME getaway can be great when you can plan ahead to schedule time off from clinical. Online courses, however, offer more flexibility with self-paced learning, and medical informational platforms with CME can help chip away at your CME requirements throughout the year leveraging the work you’re already doing in conjunction with patient care.
Register early and explore our discounts. Many conferences offer early bird registration discounts, and we’ve included several PSG member perks above to help you stretch your CME allowance further.
If it looks “too creative,” it could be. When there’s money to be made, there’s always the potential to stumble across spam or fraudulent opportunities. If an opportunity is claiming to be CME eligible but doesn’t pass your internal spidey sense test, do a little extra research. Look up the credentials of the company offering the opportunity, look into what type of CME accreditation it offers, and ask colleagues and friends if they’ve had any experience with the company or course in the past.
Conclusion
There are plenty of creative ways to use your CME funds for personal and professional development, while providing opportunities to network with healthcare leaders and other physicians. We hope the suggestions above help you explore new options for any leftover CME money available. Just remember to verify the CME credits and eligibility of a certain opportunity to your employer’s guidelines before spending any money in anticipation of reimbursement.
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