ABIM Remains Tonedeaf to Physician Concerns

Recently, Richard Baron MD, the President and CEO of the ABIM, circulated the following email request to a select group of physicians:

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Like a resuscitation attempt that has continued for over an hour, the ABIM appears to want to flog its dying MOC program a few more times, hoping physicians haven't noticed.

But we have.

And they are wasting our time. Despite physicians calling for an end to MOC, the ABIM wants to maintain it. Without it, you see, they'll be bankrupt. Note also that the ABIM wants to offer physicians who participate in their "research" for less than $50/hour. (No compensation is given from travel to and from the testing center). Ironically, UpToDate already makes the need to participate in the ABIM/ABMS MOC program obsolete. Third, most physicians at large hospital settings have access to UpToDate already. Fourth, 20 MOC points seems like bribery when your program is increasingly required for hospital credentialing and insurance company panel participation.

Finally, I wrote the ABIM leadership over a month ago about my concerns of their MOC program in response to a "blueprint survey" request they circulated earlier. I still have not heard from anyone within the organization. This is disappointing. The ABIM needs to respond to its most fervent critics honestly and transparently. But this does not appear to be their modus operandi.  As a participating diplomat in the ABIM, I would expect a response from the organization well within that timeframe if they were serious about improving their credibility. This is a recurrent theme under the helm of Dr. Baron.  In fact, even Dr. Baron has never offered a credible explanation for the tax filing and webpage reporting discrepancies of the ABIM Foundation creation date and domicile location. These communication lapses are inexcusable from a professional organization that pretends to offer public trust in its services.

The ABIM and the ABMS have serious financial conflicts of interest and have demonstrated highly irregular behavior for a tax-funded non-profit organization. It is not proper for a 501(c)(3) organization to have deceptive tax filings and public sanctioning of physicians after home raids to protect their monopoly on re-certification. Their testing subcontractor, PearsonVue, also uses testing "spy" firms that casts wide and unaccountable security nets as well, making the risk for physician participation in such a punative program very real. Until each of these issues are investigated, I could encourage my colleagues to carefully consider the ramifications of participating in this latest ABIM MOC research project that promises to potentiate this expensive and corrupt re-credentialing program that has never shown benefit to patient care.

-Wes