In August, some of the 470 individuals scheduled to take their exams may have been impacted by a series of technical issues with our exam provider, PSI. ABGC’s board and leadership wanted to provide some background on why the issues occurred and an update on where they currently stand.
On August 11, test takers began receiving error messages when launching their exams through PSI test centers and live remote proctoring. This was due to both an overall software system upgrade by PSI and an update that asked for Diplomate social security numbers to verify exam eligibility.
PSI was able to resolve this issue on August 15, and during the period from August 11-15, was able to manually update and register all test takers.
On August 17, a secondary issue arose from the software upgrade that resulted in many Diplomates having duplicate entries within PSI's system. This prevented Diplomates from being able to take their exams. PSI was able to correct this issue on August 18 and communicated with those affected and assisted in rescheduling their exams. ABGC was informed of this issue after the solution was in place.
Lastly, on August 22, PSI began to receive reports that candidates trying to take their remote proctored exams were receiving an error when opening the browser. PSI was able to resolve this issue on the morning of August 23. At that time, PSI communicated directly to all scheduled test takers to reschedule their exams for the following week.
PSI is currently conducting an independent audit to determine why Candidate Services was directing test takers to ABGC with questions about these technical issues, when all rescheduling or questions should have been handled by PSI.
We recognize that the ability to certify or recertify is crucial to your career and practice as a genetic counselor, and that these issues have caused significant stress during an already difficult time.
As of August 24, we have been told by PSI that all issues have been resolved and they anticipate the remainder of the testing window to continue normally.
ABGC and PSI will work with all test takers to ensure they are rescheduled to take their exam if they were affected by any of these issues. If you were among the test takers who experienced any issues and have not been rescheduled, please reach out to ABGC Headquarters