"The American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates recently approved resolutions addressing concerns about the American Board of Medical Specialties' (ABMS) MOC program at its annual meeting.I found this notice puzzling.
The resolutions are consistent with the HRS concerns and commitment to advocate for changes to the Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program. HRS currently has a representative in the AMA House of Delegates. To ensure that HRS maintains its seat at the AMA House of Delegates, the Society must demonstrate that 20 percent of the Society’s U.S. physician members are also members of the AMA.
The AMA also approved the commissioning of a study that will evaluate the impact of MOC and Maintenance of Licensure requirements on physicians. This study addresses the heart of the debate and HRS looks forward to the results of this important study."
While the Heart Rhythm Society states the resolutions "are consistent with the HRS concerns and commitment for changes to the MOC program," it appears they do not understand that the House of Delegates overwhemingly resolved to end Maintenence of Certification immediately:
"RESOLVED, That our American Medical Association call for the immediate end of any mandatory, secured recertifying examination by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) or other certifying organizations as part of the recertification process for all those specialties that still require a secure, high-stakes recertification examination."This does not mean changing the ABMS MOC program, it means ending it.
This does not mean studying the ABMS MOC program, it means ending it.
And this certainly does not mean supporting the AMA with our dues when they fail to act in the practicing physicians' best interests either.
Look, it is now abundantly clear that the ABIM did many, many illegal and self-serving activities with our diplomat fees for (at least) the past 27 years. And when they were caught red-handed with their hand lodged in the practicing physician's personal liberty and financial cookie jar, they tried (and continue to try) to cover it up. What they've done is illegal in many fronts. This is not acceptable and none of us need to "change" MOC or perform "another study" on MOC (funded by our dues) to sweep these actions under the rug. MOC just needs to end immediately.
I worry that the HRS leadership doesn't understand how angry practicing physicians are about what has transpired behind our backs as we've struggled to do the yeoman's work of patient care.
Here's the deal: if the HRS wants my dues for another year going forward, move to end MOC now. Put your actions where our money is. Otherwise, I'll save my hard-earned assets for other things besides supporting groups who don't support those of us on the front line of health care who obey the law and prefer to manage our profession ethically and transparently, rather than through political channels using threats and intimidation as their modus operandi.
-Wes
20 comments:
What did the member boards--with AMA delegates--hear about their own June 2016 vote calling for an immediate end to all mandatory MOC? And when did they not hear it?
Here is a list of AMA member organizations with rights to be represented with delegates at the AMA House of Delegates. The operational word to look for in the bylaws of the AMA is binding or non-binding vote.
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/about-ama/our-people/house-delegates/the-delegates/member-organizations.page?
Our professional societies are too conflicted to act. They make substantial money from their ABIM ties. We must act separately.
RCAMD- I agree, that just about sums it up.
I resigned my fellowship from the American College of Physicians in protest against MOC and the scandalous ABIM/ABMS activities.
I gave up on the AMA twenty years ago.
In 2012 I learned about MOC, and decided it was just a stupid busy work activity designed by academics who clearly did not understand the realities of clinical practice and the health and professional concerns of aging physicians. These MOC designers were not caring, sympathetic and understanding physicians.
Why am I not surprised at the tangled web of financial mischief, conflicts of interest and unethical behavior all paid for by the diplomates fees?
Dr. Wes, you are one brave Cardiology / Investigative Journalist dude! My hat is off to you.
Call for a vote among the ABIM physicians on the immediate end of all mandatory MOC.
Is ABIM's current administration under Dr. Baron committed to the ideal that governance should work for everyone and not just the well-connected elites in the inner circles of the AMA, ACP, ABMS, ACGME, and so on who stand to make a fortune off of their well-connected network of clever policy experts, army of lawyers/risk managers, and highly conflicted techno schemers?
Why has the AMA's House of Delegates' efforts to end all mandatory MOC immediately gone essentially unheeded - ignored by these AMA elites? Where are noble council representatives at the AMA who could stand up and say that the delegates' strong statement and vote means something in our democratic society and act on it?
Instead of clear affirmation of the House delegates' vote to end MOC by the AMA council, instead, we get some nonsensical distractions from AMA member societies that the ABMS executives are going to be taxing their hard working physicians into oblivion into the foreseeable future until kingdom come. And the ABIM executives imagine they will be eating MOC with whipped cream at the luxurious table of Lois Nora forever.
I have a question for ABIM's chief of staff, Suzanne Biemiller, who works for the President, Dr. Richard Baron. After working for Philadelphia's last mayor, Michael Nutter, as his first deputy chief of staff and comparing the work you are doing at the ABIM with your former city government position, can you honestly say for the past two years you have worked together with physicians to advance the public good and not just the fortunes of a chosen few?
Where is your voice in this opportunity to advance our democratic principles and sense of fair play? 200,000 physicians should be given the opportunity to prepare the wording on a ballot and vote for or against the ending of all mandatory MOC. As an exponent of less burnout for physicians and the right to choose one's own course of study for "keeping up", let's put MOC to the test with a binding vote among physicians. Then the ABIM can truly say, "We are listening."
The House of Medicine should take heed. Brexit has implications for Organized Medicine as well.
How about a Physician exit - a PHEXIT from the ABMS.
Physicians have already voted to leave MOC.
The AMA House delegates have voted to end mandatory MOC immediately.
The PA Medical Society declared a vote of no-confidence in the ABIM. They too call for an immediate end to all mandatory MOC.
Many in the media are calling for an investigation of the ABIM, largest member of the ABMS. The people are fed up with the MOC money schemes.
A law firm has been retained by the PA Medical Society to investigate the wrongdoing of the ABIM with other state medical societies jumping on board.
Membership societies have given stern warnings to the ABIM to "get it together" or there will be action taken.
It is time for action to immediately end all mandatory MOC.
End MOC now or physicians will shred its useless house of cards!
Any state medical society or medical specialty society that works consistently and persistently to end all mandatory MOC immediately (as the AMA House Delegates and others have voted) will see their membership numbers swell. The other societies will see their membership numbers decline and dues requests tossed in the shredder. I have already shredded all the AMA and ACP requests - getting all that costly overpriced waste out of my sight.
How does the ABIM chief of staff to Dr. Baron vote on the immediate end to mandatory MOC? Let's have a statement from the executives and board members and the newly formed council participants. Is the ABIM nothing more than a political action committed for partisan politics and corporate cronyism of the one percent?
It appears to me that the ABIM is not about the overall health of the medical environment, but more concerned with keeping the pockets of Dr. Baron, his Wall Street buddies and the rest of the chosen few green!
http://data.philly.com/elections/pres2016/?employer=ABIM
Get on the right side of history. End mandatory MOC now.
Who's running ABIM's lucrative show and what physicians need to know
ABIM's administration is fighting hard to keep guns in the hands of felons who take target practice at physicians' civil liberties and privacy.
Dr. Baron and Suzanne Biemiller, Rich Baron's chief of staff, keep silent on the issue of placing felons with violent assault records (who lie on their CV's about it) in charge of their secret police units affecting the lives of 200K physicians and more when you consider that their felons in charge work for the ABMS as well.
The ABIM "director of investigations" (with a double felony conviction and a violent third charge plead to remove in exchange for a guilty plea) in charge of the ABIM testing security spies now and spied on physicians since his hiring in 2008. With this felon, and the use of fear-mongering tactics, ABIM has literally broken laws regarding constitutional rights and privacy of their physicians who pay big money to the organization to protect the public. Who will protect the physicians from the ABIM's felonious attacks?
With full support of Baron and Biemiller the ABIM secret police under the leadership of a violent felon has been given full legal protection of Ballard Spahr--paid for by phycians' MOC and certification fees. This felon is slated to give a deposition in the ABIM v. Salas Rushford v. ABIM et al lawsuit.
By continuing to retain a 'dirty deeds' felon to fear monger physicians, Dr. Baron and his chief of staff Ms Biemiller show absolutely no regard for physicians constitutional guarantees and privacy. Dr. Baron and Ms Biemiller apparently support fraud in the workplace. They have placed and retain in a high position as director of investigations and testing security a greedy conflicted overly ambitious man who has been convicted in the past of felonies including the impersonation of a police officer and illegal firearms possession.
The unique job description of ABIM's "Director of Investigations" including overreach and criminal action.
Who does Dr. Baron and Ms. Biemiller retain, aid an abet in the former COO's officer of the infamous Lynn Langdon?
They aid and abet the director of ABIM's investigations and testing security, Mr. Ariel Benjamin Mannes changed his name to A. Benjamin Mannes and sometimes goes by the alias of Benjamin "Ben" Mannes or just Ben Mannes to obscure his past offenses as a goon-thug cop thrown off of the police force for harassment and intimidation of a reporter in 2003. Before joining the ABIM Mannes worked in "security" at a risqué night club as a goon-thug bouncer.
Dr. Baron and his chief of staff Suzanne Biemiller, former deputy chief of staff to Michael Nutter (prior mayor of Philadelphia) supports the use of aliases to hide wrongdoing in the workplace and other conflicted financial obfuscations, just as Dr. Baron and Ms. Biemiller support maintenance of certification money schemes with third party contractors who work with their highly conflicted in-house felons. The list goes on and on of offenses and violations. The organization is accountable to no one and so are their felons working to advance their lucrative extracurricular work activities at Caveon, Kryterion and the entire ABMS where Mannes secret felonious services have been employed.
Working under Baron and Biemiller (as the past two COO's Lynn Langdon and Nick Hines have suddenly "left the ABIM corporation") the physician community of 200,000 strong would like to have an official statement about the ABIM's unconscionable support for fraud, constitutional violations, destruction of privacy and all the other covert financial perpetrations involving third party testing/security firms like Caveon and Kryterion, Cecity, Premier, Inc., etc.
We would like to ask the ABIM with honest shock (and no shrill voice whatsoever), what the hell has been going on there! And when are Rich Baron and Suzanne Biemiller, chief of staff, and the other executive and board members who have been obviously covering up crimes against physicians for a very long time--two generations in fact--going to give us the promised transparency.
We as patient and client need to understand ABIM/ABMS' need for the dark finances and clandestine operations involving too many ABIM executives and directors to name in a court document. There have been too many crimes, conflicts of interest and ethics violations to list or keep track of.
We are waiting for the truth and the visibility about our future that we deserve.
Annual dues to the ACC $770
Annual dues to the HRS $620
Annual dues to the AMA $420
Annual dues to the ACP $495
Heart Rhythm Society Conference registration fee: $1620
ACC Scientific Session registration fee $934
DEA License: $731/3 years
State Medical License Application Fee $1130; Renewal Fee $540
State CDS $20
Hospital Staff Annual Dues X 3
ABIM MOC $2560 per sub specialty
MOC Board Review Course $2100 per subspecialty
Am I missing any other ancillary costs to being a physician?
The hidden political costs of doing business with the ABIM/ABMS and their MOC programs.
There is additional proof of why MOC must end immediately. It is funding corruption--both political and corporate corruption.
The additional financial burden to physicians are the hidden costs as a taxpayer paying Richard Baron's salary and his clandestine political activists/policy managers and secret security henchman. The 'powers to be' get our fees and tax dollars to affect the course of medicine.
The ABIM and ABMS, AMA, ACP and societies affect healthcare change through acting improperly as political action committees (PACs) or policy and guideline brokers for corporate medicine and the government. Many of the highly paid executives/staff do this work primarily (certainly enough to draw red flags from the IRS) and they use our tax dollars to subsidize their partisan and corporate causes. So we have these hidden costs--enormous in aggregate--of paying for these professional medical bureaucrats who cheat on us behind our backs and at our expense.
The cost is very high regarding our fees and the passive revenue generator coming off the tax boon granted to all these so-called non-profits which are really for-profit politically-motivated organizations just like the ABIM. It has been ruinous for healthcare, because of the influence pedaling, conflicts of interest, blatant fraud and even subtle hard to detect other forms of corruption. Or the secret police of ABIM/ABMS/Caveon/ATP test security hardliners who will take you to court and prison--based on harsh provisions they lobbied for themselves.
What they don't tell you is that these testing hardliners bribe, trade and sell favors to congress and the white house directly to get measures passed that would allow them to profit their corporate partners and malign everyone's civil liberties and privacy. There is evidence that some of the international standards and measures organizations have been infiltrated with third-party auditors who push sales for some of the ABIM affiliate testing/security corporations that offer certifications. Large corporations and small alike. The corruption and network to administer that corruption is worthy of a federal investigation.
There is way too much politics funded by taxpayer payouts/physicians' fees going to the ABIM and their cronies in charge of vast networks of not-for-profit organizations. The executives as we now know make obscene money in return for "selling out" to special interests and secret corporate agendas facilitated through political "networking." Theses non-profit organizations are populated with people appointed by top-tier politically ambitious medical bureaucrats like Christine Cassel and Richard Baron. (CMS, NQF, Commonwealth Fund, ABIM, ABMS, ACGME, AMA, ACP, ATP, United Health, ACO's, etc.)
It is not just ABIM/Richard Baron/CMS/NQF/Commonwealth Fund/ACO's and ABMS and their connections to Congress, NQF/Helen Darling/Chris Cassel/Richard Baron/United Health, CMS/Andy Slavitt/United Health, AHRQ/Bob Wachter/UCSF, HRSA, CDC to name a few of the usual suspects.
And how about ABIM's Ann Grenier who followed Christine Cassel over to the NQF. Ms Grenier and Christine Cassel are good examples of physician fees and tax dollars going to undermine patients interests and a physician's ability to care for patients by imposing burdensome guidelines, bureaucratic red tape/clicking and policies that become law--once again through physician fees, dues and tax boons.
Ann Greiner/NQF/ABIM/IOM
http://www.qualityforum.org/Ann_Greiner_.aspx
Another dubious job description at the ABIM with political implications--Chief of Staff. http://www.abim.org/about/executives.aspx
Now we discover yet another rising professional politician at the ABIM with dubious job description, that is, referring to the position of Chief of Staff. Suzanne Biemiller fills the position working with Richard Baron, his directors, officers and staff. We can assume Richard Baron and Bob Wachter appointed her, but we do know of this ABIM executive's varied and deep political connections involving active participation in electing Philadelphia mayors and strong political ties to governors, legislators and healthcare bureaucrats.
Just when we thought we got rid of Christine Cassel only to see her rise more powerful than ever picking up her egregious conflicts of interests again with Kaiser Permanente after leaving the NQF, but not the White House where she is healthcare advisor to the POTUS.
In fact, the story of Cassel and Biemiller sounds familiar in that it is perhaps all political and lobbying on the job. The strange thing is Ms Biemiller has outside political gigs while working for the ABIM with no mention of her employment! with ABIM in 2015 990 tax filing???). Biemiller was hired by ABIM in June 2014. She should have been listed. We want to know her salary and how many hours she is contracted for and if the Foundation has her as an associate or employee.
The natural question comes to mind. Is Ms. Biemiller little more than a political liaison for the ABIM, Christine Cassel, NQF, Congress, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Convention--all paid for with fees from physicians. As we know the DNC is being hosted by Philadelphia and ABIM's good partner Ballard Spahr, who, by the way is graciously offering up the services of one of their partners to be the DNC chairman--former Philadelphia mayor, and two-term governor--the honorable Ed Rendell.
The field of improper political activities, secret lobbying and influence pedaling is ripe for investigation at the ABIM! I'll provide a few links to get anyone interested started.
Who is Suzanne Biemiller, Chief of Staff, for Dr. Baron and what does she do exactly for the ABIM? Ms. Biemiller has been very active in city and state government and political campaigns for years. Like Christine Cassel who was rarely at the office in Philadelphia, I wonder if Ms. Biemiller can find time to do her duties at the ABIM, whatever those duties are? I find it surprising that Ms Biemiller while working for the ABIM actually had other jobs working in the city/state government concurrently. These jobs imo certainly qualify as politically sensitive roles.
Is ABIM playing politics? Maybe one should say, have they ever not been playing politics? Do we have a full time lobbyist at the ABIM communicating not just with staff, but with
We understand that Ms. Biemiller is a supporter/contributor to Hillary Clinton's bid for the Presidency of the United States. But is Ms. Biemiller not also actively campaigning for Ms. Clinton in some capacity as well? As everyone knows the Democratic National Convention will be hosted by Philadelphia this July. And ABIM's legal partner Ballard Spahr is directly/indirectly hosting the convention through DNC chairman former PA governor Ed Rendell. Mr. Rendell is a partner at Ballard Spahr.
During 2015 and 2016 Ms Biemiller served as Chairperson to the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority (PICA). Ms. Biemiller claims no conflicts of interest? Also, Ms. Biemiller currently serves as Vice-Chair of the Board of the Community College of Philadelphia.
With such an important role as chief of staff I am surprised that the 2015 990 filings does not list Suzanne Biemiller at all. Why is that?
http://www.ccp.edu/
http://www.picapa.org/abou/
"Suzanne Biemiller, MA, Chief of Staff, President's Office (From ABIM's website.)
Ms. Biemiller works within the President’s Office as the Chief of Staff of the American Board of Internal Medicine. In that role, she has direct responsibility for overseeing the function of ABIM's Governance Affairs section and is responsible for monitoring and coordinating all activities at ABIM. She serves as a key representative of Dr. Richard Baron, ABIM's President and CEO, and supports communication among all of ABIM's leadership team members, chairing the Senior Executive Team. She also leads ABIM's community-centered design strategy, which was approved by the Board of Directors in February 2015.
Before coming to ABIM, Ms. Biemiller worked as the First Deputy Chief of Staff to Philadelphia's Mayor Michael A. Nutter, and previously served as his Interim Chief of Staff and Director of Policy and Planning. In these roles, Ms. Biemiller led the Nutter Administration's $1.86 billion effort to sell the Philadelphia Gas Works—one of the last remaining municipally-owned gas companies in the United States—and she was the point person in the Mayor's office for long-range planning, PhillyStat (the City's performance management system), and other strategic initiatives. Ms. Biemiller initially began this work as a consultant to the Mayor's Office of Sustainability, developing Greenworks Philadelphia, the Administration’s award-winning sustainability strategy.
Prior to joining the Nutter Administration, Ms. Biemiller worked for The Pew Charitable Trusts as a Senior Program Officer. While there, she managed the creation of the Philadelphia Research Initiative, produced a number of reports on the city's prospects and challenges and oversaw the start-ups of local and national Vice-Chair of the Board of the Community College of Philadelphiapolicy initiatives and non-profit organizations.
She currently serves as and is a member of the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority board, which serves as a financial oversight board for the City of Philadelphia
Ms. Biemiller graduated from Williams College and has a Master's degree in Public Policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
http://www.abim.org/about/executives.aspx
DrExit
Go one step deeper, it's not just about a revolution at the ABIM among physicians who are finally waking up to lies and abuses concerning the corrupt practices and highly irregular if not illegal imposition of MOC. Polling of all physicians suggests that the vast majority of physicians want out of MOC and the ABMS circles of corruption. What's it all about? It's about physicians taking back control of their professions and lives.
Physicians want the ability to provide the quality of care they wish to deliver, but they can't because their hands are busy clicking for the ABIM and others and completely bureaucratically tied. Physicians have literally become click clerks for corporate-appointed electorate with experimental social programs and far-removed bureaucratic governance. And physicians have their feet burdened with a ball and chain that has ABMS MOC tattooed on it. MOC has slowly become a legislative catch 22 preventing any freedom of action involved with fixing any of the other blatant systemic concerns.
The fundamental obstacle to beneficial change is is a small group of political elites (professional medical bureaucrats) imposing their financial and political will on every physician and patient. And this imposition of their will is by design. The MOC deck of cards dealt to physicians is marked. And there is observable dealing from the bottom of the deck constantly by ABIM executives for at least the past 30 years.
35 million dollars out of every 55 million in certification and recertification fees is utilized by the ABIM to pay its top-tier medical professionals in charge. This has been largely used to gain political and ideological control over physicians, healthcare delivery, and healthcare legislation. Anyone who disputes this is welcome to investigate the facts.
The ABIM and ABMS have gone way beyond their original role as voluntary evaluatory boards issuing certifications. They have transformed themselves into 'bad cop' regulatory societies comprised of political elites, like Richard Baron and Lois Nora who profit and play politics simultaneously. To top off the larceny they have even taken on a 'bad cop' as a mascot and appointed this bad cop surreptitiously as director of their 'secret police' with access to everyone and everything.
A 'bad cop' regulatory society run amok
Files on physicians were not enough for the ABIM and ABMS. The 'bad cop' regulatory society had to have the files of competing board review courses. They tried to get the files of Frontrunners and failed, so they played dirty with pedaling influence over the federal courts to get an ex-parte writ to seize files from Dr. Arora's review courses--which comprised twenty years of serving the profession. More and more control. When and where does it end?
J. Edgar Hoover was the last one I know of to have had such a style of bureaucratic power with his secret files kept on everyone for control of the agency, the people and the government. Corporations and politicians have been using the ABIM and ABMS physicians to control the profession and the public. This is wrong. All the lawsuits against physicians have violated constitutional rights. This is wrong. The ABIM 'bad cop' regulatory society of political elites (with total disrespect for constitutional guarantees and privacy) conducted a bogus investigation into copyright infringement using fake experts/frauds used to spy on record and compiled a body of fraudulent evidence.
ABIM and Ballard-Spahr filed a series of lawsuits that were flawed and tainted to the extreme by a 'bad cop' and 'dirty tricks lawyer' mentality. They literally employed a 'bad cop' and 'dirty lawyer' for the condemnable project, which culminated in the raid of two physicians homes to seize their personal property. This raid was conducted by paid US marshals. These injurious lawsuits and raids on personal homes have been useless and costly--used primarily for corporate and political control. This was all wrong.
The investigations and legal actions were designed to deliberately control the media presenting well-scripted misrepresentations of facts to demonize and bully physicians and pre-condition the public. What the ABIM did was illegal and physicians were cheated out of their constitutional rights. Privacy was disregarded in favor of propaganda and due process was shot in the head. The use of the media and lawsuits were designed to inflict maximum damage on phycians. Ruinous in fact.
They were used to instill fear in the power of the ABIM, now a bad cop regulatory society comprised of elite professional medical politicians. Why did they do it? Why did the ABIM and ABMS resort to cheating? These elites with total disregard for fairness and democratic principles resorted to dirty tricks and deception to push their politically ambitious corporate agenda for overhauling the healthcare system. They kept discussion to a minimum and buried the facts. They were self-righteously trying to transform the world in their own political image. Instead of success they have brought the ABIM and ABMS into a state of ruin where they are loathed and reviled by most informed physicians and the public. Maybe even pitied.
The exposure of the corruption of the ABIM and ABMS has been kept under control so far, but their finger-in-the-dike technique will ultimately fail and the flood of knowledge will flow into the public's awareness with a vengeance as it has already in physician's minds and hearts. The is of one of the most significant corporate and political scandals that we have ever seen.
Maybe the ABIM's Chief of Staff controlling the flow of information and internal communications has been very busy--even if it appears that for the past two years she has mostly 'worked out of her home' in a stress-free environment, or 'checked in' while being 'on the political road'.
WASHINGTON — Doctors, nurses and pharmacists were among more than 300 charged with health care fraud schemes involving $900 million in false billings in what the Justice Department described Wednesday as the largest such enforcement action in U.S. history.
I guess the names of Christine K Cassel, Richard Baron, Lynn Langdon, Benjamin Mannes (aka Ariel, aka A Benjamin, aka Benjamin Ben, etc) and Robert Wachter, R. Jeffrey Taylor, Kerry Weiner M.D, Fernando J. Sarria, Glenn Appelbaum, and Adam Singer, are being withheld until after the 2016 presidential elections.
DOJ versus the Hospitalist Company IPC for Medicare billing fraud. Bob Wachter Director, Chairman for Quality and Safety. "Just make sure your hands are not dirty."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/22/health-care-fraud-justice-department-charges-medicare/86241134/
ICP CEO Adam Singer named man of the year.
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20081006/MODERNPHYSICIAN/310059981
Bob Wachter and Adam Singer are strange bedfellows. "We just never knew where Chuck Denham got his money to pay me so handsomely for my talks on safety."
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndil/pr/us-files-lawsuit-against-ipc-hospitalist-company-alleges-overbilling-federal-health
Testing thuggery and political thievery
Look at the facts about the ABIM/ABMS concerning who it secretively appoints and how it unilaterally operates. I take issue with ABIM and how it hires a Chief of Staff, Suzanne Biemiller, a political professional who is flaunted on ABIM's website as a communicator, but never having any meaningful discourse at all with her we assume that it is ABIM business as usual where executives characteristically "make unilateral decisions without listening to input from the public."
We take even stronger issue with how ABIM hired an unvetted good-thug cop in 2008 to be head of their newly formed secret testing security police. Look at the results and multiple scandals stemming from that very bad choice. Dr. Baron's reckless stewardship of the ABIM both financially and operationally leaves us flabbergasted at a loss for words.
We must understand the situation we find ourselves in. Major revelations about the "director of investigations"--Ariel Benjamin Mannes'--history as a felon came out on this blog and elsewhere, and we heard not a peep from Ms. Biemiller or Dr. Baron about these significant facts. Not even a word to reassure physicians that Baron or his Chief of Staff have terminated this violent felon with a dubious and deceitful past. Why was he placed in a position of such absolute authority and trust. It is unconscionable because we believe it was intentionally done to strong-arm and persecute physicians. Fear-mongering to maintain control.
No physician would be allowed to be anywhere near medicine with such a violent, bigoted, and deceitful employment record. Yet Dr. Baron and Ms. Biemiller retain Mannes' strong-arming services and dubious investigative practices, which has undermined the integrity of the ABIM forever. Baron's own chief of staff is either a total puppet, afraid of Mr. Mannes, compliant to her bosses commands and without capacity for independent thought, or the ABIM Chief of Staff is a highly adept, cunning, and skillful politician who will go on deceiving and utilize a goon-cop just like any professional dirty politician with a track record for business deceit. And that is how Biemiller's history reads to us--business deception.
Moreover, it has been for a long time a fatal mistake not to discuss openly with the public or in a timely manner with ABIM's 200K+ physician clients anything that really matters to physicians and the public. Only propaganda and clogging to cover up the soft shoe manipulations of truth.
The corruption continues at the ABIM only with new faces. That is our conclusion as we have never heard one thing of value from any of the ABIM executives that addresses the real fundamental financial fraud perpetrated on physicians and the public called Maintenance of Certification. MOC.
And we have not heard anything at all about the sorry moral condition and chasm that the board of directors has allowed themselves to fall into. I pity Dr. Baron, a 'physician's physician', for not being man enough to address the profound insults, injuries and crimes committed against outstanding physicians--flagrant crimes that were committed under his and Dr. Cassel's watch, some of them involving Mr. Mannes and his dirty crooked partners.
"Sorry, we got it wrong" does not go deep enough to address in a focused way the fundamental core issues that ABIM needs to address. It is self-destructive and negligent for a leader of a major certification corporation to merely express disappointment in the AMA's vote to end mandatory MOC and the call for an investigation of the ABIM coming from an important medical society in ones own state and forum.
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