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