Ohio and the Embarrassment of MOC

Today Ohio legislators will be introduced to the concept of "Maintenance of Certification" or "MOC" when House Bill 273 is introduced by Representative Theresa Gavarone (R) to the Ohio Health Committee. Most of the Committee members won't have a clue what MOC is or why they should care.

Lobbyists from the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) and the American Hospital Association (AHA) will claim "the legislation puts patients at risk" and that "patients deserve to know their physicians are up to date" even though this statement flies in the face of the ABMS's own data and that of independent researchers. They even have the nerve to make statements like this: "Faced with a physician who was certified after residency who has not kept the certificate current, patients will be in the dark."

Like the members of these corporations ever set foot in a patient exam room...

Here's ABMS's ACTUAL history of promoting patient "safety" and knowing what patients think.

Recall that in 1969, Dr. Thomas Brem, former Chair of the ABIM and President of the "Advisory Board of Medical Specialties" (our current ABMS) testified before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, stumped for Big Tobacco by testifying "neither can offer unequivocal scientific proof that smoking does or does not cause cancer of the lung." Dr. Brem conveniently failed to mention he was receiving payments from "Special Account No. 4" that was maintained by tobacco company lobbyists. How many lives were affected by this testimony?

While we'd like to think this is just an isolated event, it was not. In fact, such corporate collusion has been the hallmark of the ABMS and their member boards as they shower themselves with lavish salaries and perks at the expense of vulnerable work-a-day physicians.

For her entire career as President and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine, Christine Cassel, MD served on the board of directors of the Greenwall Foundation, Kaiser Permanente, Premier Inc and other organizations with quality health care agendas at diplomates' expense while never disclosing these conflicts of interest. It was only after she joined the National Quality Forum (that receives the majority of its funds from government contracts), that these financial relationships were exposed. Citing the "distraction" of it all, she quickly resigned her affilitation with Kaiser and Premier, but not before bilking her unsuspecting ABIM colleagues for over $8.9 million and free travel for her spouse and helping to facilitate the $400 million purchase of CECity, Inc. by Premier (in which she held stock).

Robert Wachter, MD, the golden-boy of corporate medicine and promoter of hospitalist medicine, was also former chairman of the board of the ABIM for a time. He, too, would rather not discuss his "love agenda" for medicine once his relationship with IPC The Hospitalist Company was exposed by the Department of Justice for overbilling patients. It is no wonder he brought down his industry-sponsored blog, Wachter's World.

Nothing to see here, folks.

Other ABMS member boards and their corporate partners would also not like legislators to examine the American Board of Pediatrics, who saw no problem giving James Stockman, III, MD a $2.4 million golden parachute to help fund his car collection and retaining him to work eight hours a week for a $793,438 annual salary. Who funds such largess?

Working pediatricians.

James Puffer, MD of the American Board of Family Medicine and their directors have also enjoyed high salaries while quietly funding his organizations' Foundation's purchase of corporate office buildings and running for-profit real estate management companies. I'm not sure I've ever seen a clearer quality and patient safety initiative funded by diplomates.

The truth be told, MOC is a horrible embarrassment to our profession. We are doctors, for goodness sake. We are not funding vehicles for political and corporate agendas. It is sickening to me that we continue to see medical specialty societies joining the ranks of these highly-conflicted organizations so they can dovetail their lucrative data registries with maintenance of certification as their next sure-fire business model. Is spending time, energy and money lobbying on Capital Hill to keep such registries funded on the backs of working physicians more important than supporting doctors' effort to remain at the patient's bedside rather than at the keyboard?

It seems so.

MOC is coercive, hopelessly financially conflicted, and corrupt. Working physicians need Ohio representatives (and all state representatives) to examine the facts, not cave to the hospital and insurance company lobbies. Working doctors know the score now. Many any are quitting rather than subjecting themselves to MOC again and again just to keep money flowing to the ABMS and their member boards so they can keep working. Patients, particularly those in rural areas, lose when this happens.

From it's inception, MOC was created from lifetime board certification, not for patient care quality or safety, but rather so ABMS officers and directors could pay themselves handsomely. It continuation is fueled by deception, political agendas, and cronyism. MOC also requires coercion and strongman tactics to keep the money flowing. No matter how our own bureaucratic colleagues might sugarcoat MOC on the pipedream of assuring patient care quality and safety, critical examination of the evidence clearly demonstates what an embarrassement the program has been to the integrity of US medicine.

It's time to end it.

-Wes

The American College of Cardiology and ABIM

I wonder how many American College of Cardiology (ACC) members are aware that the ACC entered into a "Memorandum of Understanding" with the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), (along side the American College of Physicians and American Society of Clinical Oncology) "to explore development of collaborative pathways through which physicians can maintain board certification:"

“The ACC is pleased to join ASCO and ACP on exploring these additional pathways for cardiologists, oncologists and internists to maintain their certification. For cardiology, the ACC would provide clinicians with learning material and assessments modeled after its lifelong learning self-assessment program (ACCSAP). Helping our collective members in the provision of professional and compassionate care, while also keeping up with current knowledge, is a shared goal. We appreciate ABIM’s willingness to continue to listen to and engage with stakeholders in order to achieve this goal in a more effective manner.”

Mary Norine Walsh, MD, FACC
President, American College of Cardiology

What is not mentioned is the exchange of funds that will occur between organizations. How much will ABIM's inter-organization "certification" cost? Might this be one more financial bail-out strategy for the ABIM, given their long history of financial impropriety and rapidly depleting consolidated net assets? Why does the ACC insist on perpetuating MOC when the AMA House of Delegates voted to end the program? Might these organizations' own financial and political aspirations supercede the needs of their members? How much more money will practicing cardiologists have to spend to remain employed at their hospital systems now that MOC is increasingly tied to our credentials and insurance payments?

MOC has become one of the largest single causes of burnout and distrust in our professional societies that increasingly ignore their members' concerns in the name of political correctness and personal gain. This professional society collaboration is anything but helpful to resolving the MOC impass and only serves to strengthen our resolve to end it.

-Wes

Our Unsustainable Fear-based ABMS Physician Credentialing System

"... diplomats would be asked, but not required, to renew the validity of the certificates at periodic intervals or face the uncertain consequences of loss of their status as certified internists, subspecialists or holders of certificates of added qualifications."

(Glassock, R. J., Benson, J. A., Copeland, R. B., Godwin, H. A., Johanson, W. G., Point, W., Popp, R. L., Scherr, L., Stein, J. H., & Tounton, O. D. (1991). Time-limited certification and recertification: the program of the American Board of Internal Medicine. Annals of Internal Medicine, 114(1), 59–62.)

* * *

"Candidates for Board Certification and Maintenance of Certification agree that their professional qualifications, including their moral and ethical standing in the medical profession and their competence in clinical skills, will be evaluated by ABIM, and ABIM's good faith judgment concerning such matters will be final.

ABIM may make inquiry of persons named in candidates' applications and of other persons, such as authorities of licensing bodies, hospitals or other institutions as ABIM may deem appropriate with respect to such matters. Candidates agree that ABIM may provide information it has concerning them to others whom ABIM judges to have a legitimate need for it.

ABIM makes academic and scientific judgments in its evaluations of the results of its examinations. Situations may occur, even through no fault of the candidates, that render examination results unreliable in the judgment of ABIM. Candidates agree that if ABIM determines that, in its judgment, the results of their examination are unreliable, ABIM may require the candidates to retake an examination at its next administration or other time designated by ABIM.

ABIM also may evaluate candidates' or diplomates' fitness for Board Certification – including their professionalism, ethics and integrity – in disciplinary matters, and ABIM's good faith judgment concerning such matters will be final."

(ABIM Online Maintenance of Certification Policies. Available at http://www.abim.org/maintenance-of-certification/enrollment-cost/policies.aspx . Accessed 3 Sep 2017).

* * *

"ABIM's review of evidence seized from the Arora Board Review reveals you were a course attendee. As part of your Examination, you and all other examinees signed a Pledge of Honesty, agreeing among other things that you would not give or receive aid in your examination. The Pledge of Honesty also prohibits Examinees from disclosing, copying, or reproducing any portion of the material contained in the Examination. You were also provided with contact information for ABIM's Exam Integrity Hotline to report inappropriate behavior that occurred with the Arora Board Review course.

ABIM has ethical and professional concerns from arising from your conduct described above. As a result, ABIM is placing a copy of this letter in your file."

(Lynn O. Langdon, MS, Chief Operation Officer, ABIM "Letter of Concern" dated 8 June 2010)

* * *

"The American Board of Internal Medicine is moving against nearly 140 doctors who it says cheated on the organization's certification exams by seeking out, sharing and in some cases purchasing actual test questions from a board-review company.

Board certification isn't required to practice medicine, but is commonly needed for doctors of all stripes to secure hospital privileges or participate in insurance plans.

In suits filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the ABIM alleges that five physicians infringed the organization's copyright on test questions. The suits also accuse them of misappropriating trade secrets and breach of contract."

(Hobson, K. "Medical Board Says Doctors Cheated" Wall Street Journal 9 June 2010.)

* * *

"I must say, candidly, that with over 50 years of law practice I have never before seen the likes of the repeated attempts by Dr. Westby G. Fisher to malign a person based upon an 11-year old “blip” in his long and successful career of public trust. It is, to be sure, unconscionable, to be using invective to shame the ABIM and, along the way, destroying the career and good name of a very honest, competent person, I know that if a member physician were similarly treated you would be mounting the ramparts to obviate its harm to his/her career."

(Letter from Sidney Baumgarten, Esq., Attorney at Law, to Alan J. Miceli, Editor, Philadelphia Medicine Magazine dated 27 Dec 2016)

How much money does the trademarked time-limited ABMS MOC® program generate annually for the ABMS and its member boards?

$392 million. Per. Year.

(This amount does not include the revenue generated by board review courses and study materials sold by colluding state medical societies and medical subspecialty societies.)

Fear and intimidation might sell MOC® for a while, but when the US medical education and credentialing system in the United States relies on fear for little more than its bloated bureaucratic and political purposes, it is non-sustainable. Practicing physicians like myself will not be ruled by fear-based policies and politics, especially when those imposing the mandate are completely unaccountable to our patients and our families.

I would encourage all of my readers to boycott the ABMS MOC® program (irrespective of the "kinder and gentler" model MOC® pivots toward), remain board-certified with the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons, and to consider joining Practicing Physicians of America, to protect our civil liberties of free speech and Fourth Amendment protections against illegal search and seizure.

Our ability to care for patients without such intimidation demands nothing less.

-Wes