Teirstein: An Urgent Call to Action

This important email has been widely circulated today from Paul Teirstein, MD, President of the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons (NBPAS) and is an urgent call to action for practicing physicians. I urge all physicians to take a brief moment and contact your representative as Dr. Teirstein suggests. He's made the process as easy as possible:

Dear Colleague,

Several states now have anti-MOC legislation pending. Recently the Georgia legislature passed HB 165, similar to Oklahoma's SB 1148 which prohibits Maintenance of Certification (MOC) as a condition of licensure or reimbursement from third parties. However, the ABMS and its member boards have been heavily lobbying state legislators to defeat the pending bills in other states (click here to view ABMS lobbying materials). Those of us opposed to MOC must educate legislators in these states regarding how MOC requirements are onerous, expensive, have no proven benefit, and are forced on physicians by conflicted, self-appointed private ABMS member boards.

Here is how you can make a huge difference:

1. This is going to take you a few minutes. I spend hundreds of uncompensated hours per year on this issue. Please take 5 minutes of your time to help yourself and our profession.
   
   
2. This is your action item:

Click here to effortlessly send a letter by email to your district's state representatives. You will be asked to "register" by entering in your name, email and address.　 That's it.　 From your address the system will pull your specific state bill and a letter tailored for your specific state representatives you can edit (if desired) and click to send to all your district's legislators.　 We have made it as easy as possible for you.


3. There are currently many states with strong anti-MOC legislation pending. If your state currently has no anti-MOC legislation pending, your letter will encourage your representatives to create anti-MOC legislation.


4. If you are curious and want to view all the sample letters we have written by state, click here.


5. Please spread the word. We have 18,000 email addresses of physician supporters but we need many more. This will not work without your help getting this message out. Forward this email to your colleagues, your patients, your med staff office for hospital wide distribution, your specialty organizations, your FB, Twitter, Linked In and other social media friends. (You can also refer them to the NBPAS Advocacy Webpage).


6. To join the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons (NBPAS.org) and obtain continuous certification based primarily on AACME accredited CME, click here.

Thank you for your help and support.

Respectfully,


Paul Teirstein M.D.
President
National Board of Physicians and Surgeons (NBPAS)

Teirstein vs. Nora

Lois Margaret Nora, MD, JD of the American Board of Medical Specialties vs. Paul Teirstein, MD of the National Board of Medical Specialties debate at the California Medical Association meeting 16 October 2016:

Nora was given  20 minutes to speak.

Teirstein was given 10 minutes (but California Medical Association members booed until he got another 5 minutes).

Definitely worth a 14-minute viewing for it shows the revolving door of non-profit interests that maintain the MOC monopoly as only Paul Teirstein, MD can:


-Wes

Dr. Teirstein's slides can be downloaded here or a a pdf of his slides can be viewed here.

Some Thoughts on the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons

I admire Paul Tierstein, MD's honest attempt to create a greatly simplified alternative to the  ABMS's Maintenance of Certification® (MOC) program called the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons (NBPAS).  I hope he's successful, but I sense there will be large headwinds for the effort ahead.

Here's why.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) modified Sections 1848(k) and 1848(m) of the Social Security Act which defines how CMS pays physicians for their services.  Section (k) is the section that defines how a "Quality Reporting System" is to be set up (with subsection (4) requiring the "Use of Registry-based Reporting") and Section (m) defining physician incentive payments physicians might receive if quality reporting occurs properly. (Sadly, those CMS incentive payments do not cover the cost of participating in MOC for most of us.)*

Section (k) was modified by the ACA to include the ABMS MOC program as a "physician registry."  The registry was "defined" as requiring all four parts of the MOC program created by the ABMS, including the much-maligned "practice improvement modules" that have been described by the physician community as overly time-consuming, irrelevant and may even violate federal research statutes regarding the study of physicians, their practices, and patients.

Unfortunately the new NBPAS does not address these requirements of the our new health care law, leaving the creation of the NBPAS to look like a Rand Paul moment all over again with physicians signing up for something that, legislatively, means nothing.

Welcome to the concept of "regulatory capture."

Screenshot of Heart Rhythm Society webpage

Physicians should realize that special interests and their lobbyists (including the US hospital, pharmaceutical, survey companies, and insurance lobbying groups) were highly influential in the creation of our new health care law.  They are also very good at politics.  It is unlikely that these entities want to see MOC go away, irrespective of how corrupt the system has become.  There's just too much money involved.  Even our own specialty societies use the MOC program's educational requirements to coerce physicians to take their educational courses to "earn MOC points" to help pad their bottom lines as physician attendance (and corporate sponsorship) at scientific sessions has dwindled over the past years.

But what's more important to our patients in the long run? Time for their needs or time for test-taking and survey collection?  Is it more important to satisfy government requirements or address the real needs of our patients?  Certainly continuing education of physicians is needed, but irrelevant work for an unaccountable  third-party organization so they can measure us rather than help us is not.

A second Heart Rhythm Society webpage devoted to MOC

Physicians need to take the stick, but we can't do this alone since we care for patients.  So we need to ask this question: will our specialty societies commit to supporting practicing physicians or the  new bureaucratic divide? (They can't do both.)  Will they truly step up to the plate and commit their considerable staff, dollars, pager-less hours, lobbying and legislative efforts to help remove the corrupt MOC program from the Affordable Care Act or allow practicing physicians - their members - to wallow in the corrupt status quo as they are coerced to participate in MOC?

I remain pessimistic that creating another "board" will fix the current deep-seated problems with the ABMS MOC construct with ABMS as the mothership directing a flotilla of 24 member boards.  In my view the only way to truly "change" MOC is to have a coordinated effort from all specialty societies to insist our legislators remove the portion of our new health care law that requires we participate in a "physician registry" that robs not only practicing physicians, but patient care itself.

HRS and ACC, are you on board?

-Wes

*Addendum 2/12/2015: 
It should be noted that the payment incentives offered 2012-2104 from CMS for participation in MOC ended January 1, 2015, but that MOC participation will still be used as a physician quality reporting metric.