Certification Makes a Difference

Certification demonstrates that you have the knowledge, skill, and ability to apply functional medicine to patient care, improving the lives and outcomes for patients. Earning a credential helps you achieve four key goals: credibility, patient safety, confidence, and respect.

The Functional Medicine Certification Program™ administered by IFM is available to a wide variety of medical and healthcare professionals, including physicians, nurses, nutrition professionals, and others. Because of its multidisciplinary audience, the program offers two credentials that differ based on scope of practice. Eligibility for each credential is based on the practitioner’s highest level of degree/licensure.  

Developed with input from thousands of functional medicine practitioners, the Functional Medicine Certification Program™ serves as a certification for the field of functional medicine and assesses the competencies of applying functional medicine across various scopes of licensure.

The certifications are based on competencies developed as part of a comprehensive program evaluation, including a formal job analysis. The development of the new program is guided by testing industry accreditation standards that represent best practices for developing and administering a fair and valid professional certification program. 

IFM has been educating clinicians for more than 30 years and began assessing practitioners through the IFM Certification Program beginning in 2009. In 2013, IFM recognized its first class of IFM Certified Practitioners (IFMCP) after they completed the program requirements. Over the next decade, both the profession and the program grew. The need to ensure the rigor, relevance, and reputation of functional medicine greatly evolved over that time, and as such, the certification of functional medicine began to evolve as well.