In a letter to the editor submitted to JAMA but not yet published, TMA President Carlos J. Cardenas, MD, agrees on the importance of self-regulation to his profession.Here's a link to the full statement.
"It encompasses our responsibility and our authority to establish and enforce standards of education, training, and practice," Dr. Cardenas wrote. "We routinely defend that responsibility and authority in advocating against the intrusion of all third parties — such as government, private insurers, hospital administrators — into the practice of medicine."
But physicians in Texas and across the country, he argued, do not see the certifying boards as "self."
"They are, instead, profit-driven organizations beholden to their own financial interests," Dr. Cardenas wrote. "In fact, they are now one of the outsiders intruding into the practice of medicine."
Until the boards "completely overhaul their processes, finances, and lack of transparency," he concluded, physicians "will have no choice but to continue to seek statutory defenses against these third-party intrusions into our noble profession."
-Wes
Dr. Cardenas' statement concisely describes everything that's wrong not only with ABMS, but the entire Quality/Certification Cartel.
ReplyDeleteIt's time for the DOJ/IRS/FTC and the Iowa/Pennsylvania/Illinois Attorney General's offices to proceed with comprehensive investigation of the Cartel's activities, which are all based on asserting usurped authority over physicians never granted to these organizations by the public.
Eliminating these organizations and their influence on physicians and patients represents achievement of true physician self-regulation.
It is amazing that the FTC protects consumers from debt collection scams, even sues on their behalf, but I have heard of no action to date suing the hucksters and schemers running the ABMS Quality-Certification Cartel.
ReplyDeleteThe rise of many offending NGOs has been like a fifth column destroying America's healthcare system from within, from the shadows by unscrupulous men and women.
Physicians and patients are being squeezed and bartered away in order to divert money to powerful special interests that have a vision of growing profits and global hegemony. The public is not aware of how all things interconnect financially and politically to support inhumanity: the wars, financial chaos and political terror.
The bulk of these troublesome testing/certification/accreditation corporations consciously and unconsciously support the inane and senseless rationing of healthcare and outrageous control of physicians just to support a supra-elite who ravage us and whole countries; whole regions intending to eventually make a handsome profit from it all or to keep others from it in unfair trade practices using bombs, threats and propaganda instead of real cooperation, diplomacy and negotiations.
The private corporations in this destructive powerful "assurance cartel" have morphed to become political machines and looters. They have stolen from physicians by overcharging, money-laundering, lobbying to secure the creation of "MOC money streams", and the creation of monstrously corrupt foundations. They have stolen from the taxpayer. They should unequivocally all be investigated and the most egregious executive offenders indicted for public fraud, tax evasion, and racketeering.
But moreover these unholy corporations need to be closed down by whatever means it takes. Through defunding, state statutes, moral and rational persuasion (not likely); but more likely it will take a flood of personal injury lawsuits that could result from protections granted in state-sponsored anti-MOC statutory relief.