In November 30, 2018, the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons (NBPAS) and the National Board of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons (“NBOPAS”) requested the Maryland Board of Physicians ("Board") formally recognize them as a specialty certification board for continuing certification. Armed with a 17-page letter from the DOJ, they were hopeful, but the outcome of their request they just received from the "Board" was almost predictable:
As a policy matter, board certification or re-certification is not a requirement for licensure. Board certification, however, may be a requirement for employment, hospital privileges, insurance carriers, etc. In that regard, the Board does not believe that it is the appropriate entity to evaluate re-certification or continuing certification boards for approval.It is a shame this fight has come to this, but it has. Maybe now the leadership of the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons will recommend their diplomates join our nationwide, multi-specialty legal fight to end "Maintenance of Certification."
The Board believes, consistent with the DOJ opinion letter, that board certification and the approval of a certifying board for recertification is a business decision to be made by hospitals, insurers, and employers. Even if the Board approved the NBPAS or NBOPAS as a continuing certification board, hospitals, employers, and insurance carriers would still be able to make their own determinations about which boards they choose to recognize for purposes of meeting any eligibility requirements.
Given the inconclusive findings of the MHCC workgroup and the lack of data on quality of care, the Board believes that approval of the NBPAS and NBPOS as a certifying board is premature. The Board will continue to monitor the discussions and research projects regarding maintenance of board certification, including the recommendations from the Continuing Board Certification: Vision for the Future Commission, which are expected to be released in a final report sometime this year.
-Wes
Addendum: Maybe Maryland joining the Interstate Licensing Compact (with the help of Kaiser Permanente, a fond bedfellow of ABIM's former President and CEO, Christine Cassel, MD), had something to do with this decision.
What a shame all around from the weakness of the Maryland Medical Boards. From this letter, they will not allow the NBPAS and NBOPAS to become a certifying body but will allow the ABIM to continue even though there is no evidence of measurable quality? This proves that the corruption of MOC and supposed self regulation is at the state level and that money is more important than patient care and that physicians should be treated with prejudice. If the statement from Damean Treas is true then either accept the NBPAS and NBOPAS or don't allow any boards any more status than others such as the ABIM.
ReplyDeleteAll state medical boards who wish to be Doc Cops are corrupt as they have turned their backs on such obvious corruption of ABIM/ABMS and their business practices. This would be against all issues or professionalism that all boards states are part of their judiciary responsibility to mandate. A physician can be placed on probation for a DUI but no issues are done for obvious racketeering?
I'm with Dr. Fisher. "A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right & evil doesn't become good, just because it's accepted by a majority (minority of corruption in this case). If this was a civil rights case, it would garner more attention.
Keep this letter from Dr. Treas as one day he will have to state to Maryland physicians on why he looked the other way when he was called on to make decision for patients and physicians. He will be on the wrong side of history.
It's ironic that the ABIM/ABMS state they are best way for self regulation. If a physician made a medical error or was impaired, the medical boards would sanction them. If a physician did something illegal, a regulatory board or some part of the justice system would intervene and make a ruling with some sort of punishment. If there was waste at a hospital, utilization review would intervene.
ReplyDeleteWith MOC it is not happening by either a regulatory board, part of the justice system or utilization review. It is the physician himself/herself at the grass roots level who is doing their best to weed out the corruption and bring to justice the crimes of all those involved with MOC. The irony of the situation is that physicians are showing self regulation by policing themselves and acting with integrity by exposing the corruption of MOC and all those involved.
The ABIM/AMBS, medical boards and justice systems have had ample opportunities to prove themselves of fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities. None of them have. Now it is time to go to court.
One other question, how much money or persons are needed for required for the medical boards, justice systems and hospital administrators to look the other way?
The anti-MOC movement is not just about doctors dealing with ABMS corruption, it is about every possible person in the nation and the world. The patient. Every patient is under potential threat of NOT getting the highest standard of care and medical science. A standard of care that is free of toxic contaminants. Free of polluting commercial propaganda and self-dealing political agenda. But moreover patients and physicians everywhere need to be free (rid once and for all) of the ABMS/ACGME et al's obscenely unjustified self-enrichment scheme.
ReplyDeleteThat scheme is called MOC - or whatever new name their risk managers and attorneys come up with to deflect from the absolute corruption/opportunism that has infiltrated the arena of life long learning and inflicted so much damage.
Money grubs MOCketeers are eating away at the body of healthy medicine and science. Robbing the vitality out of "self-regulation" in continuing education and the once "voluntary" certification process. MOCketeers are making a mockery out of the healthcare delivery system in America.
Invest with us or else!
ReplyDeleteMOC is a festering blemish on the history of the ABMS and the 24 current medical specialty boards who deceive physicians and the public with their PONZI scheme.
Physicians are the unwitting investors who have paid into ABMS' fraudulent investment portfolio in the name of "self-regulation". It is a conspiratorial scheme where there is no self in the pyramid whatsoever, only a hierarchy with those on top sucking billions of dollars out of the system. And everyone else below being forced to go along with the PONZI scheme or lose their jobs and reimbursement.
Not even the worst of the worst Ponzi schemes threatens their investors with that. Pay or else! "Invest in MOC (voluntary self-regulation) or else!"
All this wasted MOC Money down the pyramid chute. Funds that could be used for something essential and vital related to medical care or scientific research.
"What took you guys so long?"
Physician and patient investors in this fraudulent (MOC) scheme are beginning to wake up. But it is a Ponzi scheme of gargantuan proportions, that goes beyond MOC, where everyone will start pointing the finger at each other, once it is even partially understood and exposed. The fraud is so large in scope the whole of the Department of Justice could not tackle it by themselves. Nor any other agency. The IRS would be deluged. Civil lawsuits only scrape at the surface veneer and a few of the surfactants/agents involved in running the scheme.
Bernie Madoff after running his Ponzi scheme for decades asked the FEDS, "What took you guys so long to catch me."
Care must be exercised so that 2 wrongs do not make it right. Since starting this campaign of what I will call increased transparency much has changed: in Los Angeles a prison was converted into a mental hospital and perhaps the admittance of another state into the interstate licensing will free doctors to administer care across state lines. We must be sure to see the good changes that are occuring that concern patient care. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteIt's not the first time in US history that physicians have been discriminated against.
ReplyDeleteIn 1870 it was along racial lines. There were no medical specialty certifications.
In the early 1900s the Flexner report was published. It was racially biased. Blatantly discriminatory - alarming so and to an embarrassing degree. Recommended medical training and treatment be divided along racial lines. Flexner's report led to the closure of medical schools along racial grounds. Closed medical schools on the basis of gender.
Then voluntary lifelong medical specialty certifications were offered in the 1930s and later. Discriminatory attitudes were common. Issuance of certifications may have exasperated racial and educational divide in the country. The AMA and ACP organized the ABIM in 1936 after the social security legislation passed.
Federal laws were passed in the 1960s making discrimination illegal.
Fast forward to today. Now we have wholesale discrimination against nearly all doctors who are being forced into the bondage of MOC, irregardless of racial, gender or social status. Now the bias/discrimination is based on age and the arbitrary date of one's initial test.
How bizarre the journey from 1846 when the AMA was launched to today.
The origins of data collection
In 1846, the organization [AMA] created a committee dedicated to analyzing the methodology of vital records registration. It urged state governments to adopt measures to register births, marriages and deaths within their populations.