A sense circuit is coupled to a bit line of a memory array. Control circuitry coupled to the sense circuit controls a program operation for a memory cell. After a program phase in which the memory cell in the memory array is programmed, in a program verify phase the control circuitry causes the sense circuit to sense data stored on the memory cell multiple times during the program verify phase. The multiple times include a first time sensing data from the memory cell and a second time sensing data from the memory cell.