"In response to a recent request from the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), the (American College of Radiology) ACR created a work group to comment on a report on the status of (Maintenance of Certification) MOC® across all specialties. That group worked tirelessly over the winter holidays to prepare a detailed comment letter (ed. note: a portion of which is highlighted here):"
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"The ACR also signed on to a letter from the Council of Medical Subspecialty Societies (CMSS), which represents approximately 800,000 physicians from 43 medical subspecialty societies.Mind you, these cases have not been brought before the court yet, but there now appears to be a serious level of introspection and concern at the highest level of some specialty societies as to what transpired to get us where we are with "continuous" ABMS Board certification.
Both the ACR and CMSS letters call for an immediate moratorium on MOC® until many programmatic deficiencies are corrected.. . .
These important ACR member issues have recently been amplified by the backdrop of various ABMS member boards coming under intense scrutiny and even legal actions for financial practices, lack of transparency, non-democratically elected leadership, high-stakes non-validated psychometric testing and concerns about monopolistic behavior. The American Board of Radiology (ABR) was named as a defendant in one class action suit and a “co-conspirator” in another.
Our Task Force is studying these issues and preparing to make recommendations to the BOC and CSC at both the ACR 2019 and ACR 2020 annual meetings."
Colleagues, now is not the time to back off our funding campaign to support the litigants in this anti-trust battle. In fact, we need more physicians from ALL specialties frustrated with the current MOC® status quo to join us to keep the pressure on ALL of the ABMS member boards.
-Wes
Reparations of ill gotten ABMS gains, abolition of all mandatory MOC and its relegation to optional CME status, elimination of all grandfather status and strictly transparent revenue neutrality going forward just for starters. All else is nought. Let the legal hyenas rip these bastards to shreds. Too late for pretty please or heartfelt apologies. Stick a pitchfork in the ABMS, they're done.
ReplyDeleteFirst start with MOC, then ask why do we have to pay for Board Certification at all?
ReplyDeleteWe have been “brainwashed” into thinking Board Certification means quality, just like the insurance companies and hospital staff office.
When you read these law suits you suddenly get ill thinking as to how any of us missed the diagnosis: racketeering! Buy my token or else you won’t practice medicine!
I blame us, all of us, for being too busy caring for patients to see this for what it is!
CRIMINAL!
Well said. Read Grosch's paper "Does specialty board certification influence clinical outcomes?" (Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 12, 5, 473–481). He finds that it does not and further, all the "research" claiming some such evidence is a biased mish mash of ABMS sponsored garbage. The sole certification of a physician's excellence is that awarded by the residency training (and fellowship) program upon graduation. All other $$$ certification is bogus. This rabbit hole runs deep and the exposure of MOC is merely the beginning.
ReplyDeleteI am a neonatologist and I donated. Us pediatricians are too nice to file our own lawsuit (to date) against the ABP. :)
ReplyDeleteBut we are just as pissed and have no time for worthless MOC endeavors especially "practice improvement" and exams. This is a RACKET. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU . I am watching the progress of the lawsuits carefully.