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CAST Annual Reports

Each CAST accredited fellowship program is required to complete an annual report application each year. All approved annual reports will offer your program continued accreditation. Annual reports are available via SM Apply on June 1st each year and close July 31st each year. Annual reports must be submitted whether or not your program has a graduating fellow.

Every annual report will require the following information to be submitted:

  • Demographic information for the fellowship
  • Current faculty list/update
  • Site information
  • Block diagram
  • Fellow schedule
  • Institutional case numbers for year in review
  • Fellow case numbers for year in review (as applicable)
  • Fellowship program director attestation
  • Chair support letter(s)
  • Application fee

Complement increase requests are available in each annual report application. Programs may request a complement increase once they have a fellow graduate that meets all case minimums and has the needed number of institutional cases. To be approved, institutional cases must support the addental fellow. If there are case minimum posted for the subspecialty, to increase the complement to 2 fellows, you will need 2X the institutional cases in each case category.

Site changes may be requested via the annual report. Any additional site must be within 50 miles of the primary site to ensure the fellow is given the best educational experience supported by their FPD and core faculty. The program will need to submit the institutional case numbers for the requested new site.

Instructions for the annual reports are as follows (once the application is open):

You may receive your annual report application with this link.

  • Log in, select the role of applicant
  • Click on the “Programs” link in the upper right-hand corner
  • Click on the CAST 2026 Annual Report Program application
    • Ensure to select correct application
  • Click on the green apply button
  • Name your application with the following format: Program Name, Subspecialty, 2024AR
    • For example: ABC Hospitals and Clinics, Skull Base, 2025AR or
    • Main Street Medical Center, Spine, 2025AR
      • You will need to repeat that for each of your CAST fellowships
  • You will then see the application in your “My Applications” area

A few reminders as you are completing the application:

  • The application is intuitive, meaning it will ask you questions based on previous answers. You will need the first section to be marked complete before you will see the corresponding case logs that you need to fill out.
  • You can add collaborators to the application to assist in filling it out, however, the owner of the application is the only one that can submit it once complete.
    • Your FPD should be added as a collaborator to the application because they will need to sign off on all the case logs.
  • Ensure that your site information is the same across your block diagram, fellow schedule, and case log.
    • For instance, if you have 2 sites mentioned in your block diagram, there should be the same described in your fellow schedule and corresponding case log that is submitted. If for any reason they do not match, there needs to be an explanation as to why. If site data doesn’t match across all areas, that will generate a concern for your annual report.
    • If you have a Neurocritical Care fellowship, ensure you are detailing the different ICUs other than the neuro ICU that is required for this fellowship.
  • Exact case numbers are required (no rounding/estimating).
  • Ensure for accuracy–fellow case numbers should never be greater than institutional for any category
  • If you had a fellow start off cycle and they are staying past the end of this academic year to complete their fellowship. Please let us know if you will be doing that in the application.
    • For example,  your fellow started in September 2023 and staying through August 2024, you will wait to submit their numbers on next year’s annual report  
  • Electronic payment is mandatory via debit/credit card.  Do NOT mail checks to the CAST office.

CAST recognizes that it takes time to gain access to institutional case log data. Data reported should reflect the start of the academic year in review. If the fellow is off cycle for the year, their data should be submitted on the first annual report after they graduate.

CAST encourages programs to have fellows to keep track of their own fellow case log (case logs are now available on the program subspecialty pages).