Saturday, July 28, 2018

The ABIM Has Lost Their Marbles

From the institution that secretly funded itself with ABIM diplomate fees to the tune of over $78 million that culminated in the purchase of a $2.3 luxury condominium for itself complete with a Mercedes S class town car, and offshored funds to the Cayman Islands,  comes this news release:
The 2018 ABIM Foundation Forum will consider the importance of trust in health care – and how to build and maintain it – against a backdrop of political and social turmoil and all-time lows in Americans’ trust in institutions across society.
Make no mistake: this is our physician Board re-certification money they are playing with.

At the very least, the optics of such a conference are horrible given the ABIM Foundation's past.

I hope everyone will make good use of the hashtag #abimf2018 on Twitter and then contribute to our legal fund to permanently end this shameless gaslighting of US physicians and our patients.

-Wes

Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Board Certification: From Marketing Accolade to False Idol

I'm Board certified.

So is Carmen A. Puliafito, MD.

So is Farid Fata, MD.

So are plenty of other Medscape "Best and Worst" physicians from 2012-2016.

So what is "Board certification?"

Truth be known, it is little more than a marketing accolade.

And for a while, it worked.  Doctors took board certification examinations to market themselves as competent in their field. They would take a written or oral examination created by their peers to demonstrate to others they knew their stuff. And while it remained a lifetime designation, it had some legitimacy. In reality, however, it was up to the residency training programs to train the physicians and verify they knew their stuff.  Hospitals used to verify credentials by calling residency programs and verifying doctors participated. They had large credentialing departments that kept everything on file.

But competition between hospitals vying for patients soon grew fierce and hospital marketing departments jumped on the credentialing bandwagon. Soon billboards would appear: "Come to see our board-certified specialists!" and the race was on.

Lawyers joined the fray, too. "My expert witness is better than your expert witness - see how many board certificates he has?"

Truth is, we love this crap. Just look at how many nurse practitioners are "board certified" now!

In the 1960's to 1970's, the American Board of Internal Medicine recognized how lucrative this craze could be, but they had one big problem if they were going to make certifying doctors a full-time business: the number of doctors out there was finite. (It was about that time the board members started paying themselves). They also saw how much money the American Board of Family Medicine, founded in 1969, was generating using 7-year time-limited certifications.

But the ABIM knew internists would be on to them changing the rules for board certification from a lifetime to time-limited credential. So they first tried making a voluntary "super accolade" for internists, called the "Advanced Achievement in Internal Medicine." Needless to say, after four attempts that garnered progressively declining enrollment, the AAIM concept flopped. It was Lynn O. Langdon, MA (a non-physician and Chief Operating Officer of the ABIM) who declared the "End to Voluntary Recertification" and time-limited certification was born with the threat of "uncertain circumstances" if doctors did not participate.

Needless to say, with the help of conflicted members of the ACP who stood to make handsome returns from the Medical Knowledge Self-Assessment Program (MKSAP), they were off to the financial races. And what a race it has proven to be: a nearly $1 billion dollar-a-year enterprise for the entire ACGME.

Unfortunately, no one has ever stopped to study what happens to skilled, competent, board-certified doctors that fail their computerized "re-certification" examination or fail to garner enough "MOC points" to sit for their examination. No one asks about the damage this time-limited credential is having on our physician numbers and access to care. The money is too important to the system.

Not long ago, the chairman of our cardiology division had to relinquish his role as a teacher to medical students because he refused to re-certify in cardiology while also being "certified" in interventional cardiology. (He could keep performing catheterizations and stent placements and remain credentialed thanks to the change in double jeopardy rules that changed just in the nick of time). How many medical students lost out on his experience as a result? Are we happier that medical students are now being taught by younger (time-limited) Board-certified physician instructors rather than life-time certified physicians with decades of experience in the field?

Doctors and nurses know the truth. That's why when seeking out a "quality" physician for their own care, they NEVER ask if a colleague is board-certified since board certification is now a false idol - a hoop to complete whether they're competent, ethical, or not.

We know that it's now far better to ask a trusted colleague or health professional when seeking care because there's much more to being a "quality" physician than holding a computer-generated "certificate."

-Wes

Reference: Fisher WG, Schloss EJ. Medical specialty certification in the United States - a false idol? J Card Electrophys October 2016; 47(1): 37-43.

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

US Physician ABMS Board Certification: From Voluntary to Mandatory

The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) is very careful to claim their version of "Board certification" is a "voluntary process," otherwise, this Chicago-based non-profit 501(c)(6) organization might be accused of anti-trust behavior.

"ABMS Maintenance of Certification" and "ABMS MOC" were registered by the ABMS in the US Patent and Trademark Office August 21, 2007 after filing the terms February 23, 2007.

MOC for ABMS has value.

We also know Ms. Margaret O'Kane, founder and President of the non-profit "National Committee on Quality Assurance" and that created and owns the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS). HEDIS is a tool used by more than 90 percent of America's health plans to measure performance on "important dimensions of care and service." We also find that Ms. O'Kane was a "public member" of the Board of Directors of the ABMS and advertised the importance of the ABMS MOC program "to patients and the pubic" by video and implies the ABMS board's actions assures improved "outcomes" for patients.

So it should come as no surprise that some of those payers who stand to benefit by limiting patients' access to care (in this case, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan) have made initial ABMS Board certification mandatory for physicians on their panels:


(Click to enlarge)

While claiming MOC as a requirement for physicians to receive payments because it assures their  "quality," BCBS of Michigan does not demand the same of mid-level providers like physician assistants and nurse practitioners without similar subspecialty training. Additionally, physicians who received their "Board certification" before 1990 and are farthest away from their training are not required to perform ABMS Maintenance of Certification to remain on those same insurance panels, introducing a hypocritical and discriminatory double-standard that financially benefits insurers and hospital systems (more insurance claim denials and cheaper staffing requirements).

ABMS is the puppet of the insurance companies, just as they were the puppets of Big Tobacco in the 60's.

The IRS, FTC, and SEC need to get serious about investigating this ruse.

Why?

It's compromising patient care and our patients' access to care.

-Wes

P.S.: If you haven't contributed already, please consider donating to the legal fund sponsored by Practicing Physicians of America that hopes to bring an end the ABMS Board certification/MOC monopoly nationwide.