Sunday, May 06, 2018

The Delicate Dance

There is a delicate dance between two partners every day in medicine: the dance between the benefits of innovation and the costs of that innovation. One can't survive without the other. Patients and doctors benefit from the innovation and corporations benefit by being able to sell more devices to benefit themselves and their stockholders. In a nutshell: this is capitalism.

But increasingly, doctors and patients are being asked to surrender more and more of their personal information non-transparently in a lopsided dance that benefits the corporations and their partners. A once mutual dance turns into an ultimatum.

When a physician's ability to practice medicine is tied to obtaining Maintenance of Certification® (MOC®) points, the benefit of trading that information for both the patient and physician are less clear. Doctors are threatened with losing their ability to work unless they accrue MOC® points and their patients shoulder more and more of the costs for their healthcare non-transparently to fund the ruse.

So it should come as no surprise that the "tag and release" of physicians at this year's Heart Rhythm Societies' 2018 Scientific Sessions in Boston continues unabated. Attendees are not only automatically "opted-in" to data sharing with corporations, but with accrediting agencies, too:


Here we see that a physicians'  personal information is automatically tied to a "Credit Cart" where personal "beacon" information flows to corporations in return for automatic documentation of their Continuing Medical Education (CME) /  Maintenance of Certification® (MOC®) credits. But to receive that credit, doctors must complete surveys for the various accrediting agencies that unilaterally decide what qualifies to earn CME/MOC® approval, and what does not. 

Want to steer physician thinking, give 'em a bone, or MOC® credit, to drive key opinion leaders (KOLs) to your talk, then watch your sales grow!

For doctors, here are the rules for HRS2018 that ties a doctor's information-sharing to their freedom to learn what they want and to practice medicine: 

(Click to enlarge)
Think about it every time you attend a session.

For ourselves and our patients, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

-Wes








7 comments:

Lisa said...

The 1977 Senate Hearing discussing MKULTRA and the need to test on the public without consent really hasn't been challenged much. There was victim testimony to discuss the impact of torture on innocent US Citizens, and this was followed up with a letter from the Bioethics committee stating that no further testimony would be considered.

So it goes on. You don't like all the data your badge transmitted to beacons. But at least the badge isn't a non-consensual implant that causes relentless pain. We are all being studied like lab rats. The Information Age got data whores hooked on knowing a minutia of detail about all of us. Keep fighting the good fight

Trust Barometer said...

ABMS corruption in governance, business, and as non-profit quality assurance NGO

How many physicians trust the ABMS? How many patients even know about the ABMS, and if they had heard of ABMS how many would trust this highly conflicted certificationcartel?

Here's Chicago's own global PR firm Edelman with some alarming statistics on trust.

2018 Edelman Trust Barometer - Global Report
http://cms.edelman.com/sites/default/files/2018-02/2018_Edelman_Trust_Barometer_Global_Report_FEB.pdf

"The 2018 Edelman TRUST BAROMETER reveals a world of seemingly stagnant distrust. People’s trust in business, government, NGOs and media remained largely unchanged from 2017 — 20 of 28 markets surveyed now lie in distruster territory, up one from last year. Yet dramatic shifts are taking place at the market level and within the institution of media."

Anonymous said...

MOC is voluntary? Obviously it is not!

Energizing the "Credit Cart" said...

This is a description of living one's life in the "Matrix".

"Here we see that a physicians' personal information is automatically tied to a "Credit Cart" where personal "beacon" information flows to corporations in return for automatic documentation of their Continuing Medical Education (CME) / Maintenance of Certification® (MOC®) credits. But to receive that credit, doctors must complete surveys for the various accrediting agencies that unilaterally decide what qualifies to earn CME/MOC® approval, and what does not.
Want to steer physician thinking, give 'em a bone, or MOC® credit, to drive key opinion leaders (KOLs) to your talk, then watch your sales grow!"

Anonymous said...

Very wierd and getting wierder! ABMS trains their highly educated rats to walk through the corporate maze.

Who sponsored this Skinnerian experience where you are the test?

Reminds us of the ABIM's new untested two-year testing regimen that means nothing to the public and counts for nought to a physician until they fail. An online MOC "knowledge check-in" where you meet the Pearson all-seeing-eye in the form of an unvetted third-party proctor. They will take your two pieces of id on camera while AI scans your face and iris to file away for future use (or misuse).

They do these mandated "self-regulation" MOC machinations just for you in order to make sure that you are "keeping up".

"After all, you spoke and we listened," says big brother Baraon at the ABIM.

Yeah, sure, they listened to their pre-screened participants who would give suggestions anything that would make them money. And they ignored the 860K docs along with their opposing voice in AMA House of Delegates resolution to end mandatory MOC.

Physicians have been played like fiddles by elite professional medical politicians and PR companies hired by the ABMS to feed their sheep.

Have fun doctors as WoltersKluwer and UpToDate spoon-feed the correct corporate answers into your brain and their carefully prepared interogative jewels, testing protocols, ever-changing policies and ABMS propaganda program you to be anything but physician scientists.

And they will all make tons of money with the collection of personal data along with platform partner data collection companies and third party analytica corporations who will link-up your personal/professional information with FaceBook and Twitter. All in real time and stored for future reference to see if you are a candidate for criminal or civil prosecution after you signed yet again their "take-it-or-leave-it" digital contract.

The Back Room said...

The ABMS is comprised of corporate stooges working in behalf of "the industry". That is the same "industry" in which they claim to receive no money from and have no conflicts of interest to report.

Anonymous said...

Doctors and the public need to be placed on high alert concerning healthcare fraud and the shenanigans of the ABMS. The taxpayer should demand that the ABMS, its member boards and affiliates be investigated. The ABMS needs to be taken to task for its corrupt practices. As history shows us the public and profession cannot trust these professional medical politicians who pretend to be "of the profession and for the public" when in reality they are only for themselves and the profit of their corporate partners.

Everyone at the ABMS is tainted with the smell of money and lots of it. How will this corruption end? Certainly not voluntarily as they willfully ignore the calls to real transparency and to open up their books to independent auditors. Their finances are dirty as they keep grubbing for others' hard earned money like parasites.