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At first I was going to ignore this flier, since I am board certified until 2023 in Cardiology and 2024 in Cardiac Electrophysiology.
But then I read the reverse side of the flier, and noticed this threatening sentence:
"Your deadline is approaching, so we wanted to follow-up on the email reminders we've sent to you about earning 100 MOC points by 12/31/2018 to stay certified." (emphasis mine)
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It appears the ABIM will revoke the "time-limited" certification(s) I have paid for through 2023 in Cardiovascular Diseases and through 2024 in Cardiac Electrophysiology because I have refused to earn 100 Maintenance of Certification® (MOC®) points by 12/31/2018.
Must diplomates who have "pre-paid" for their certifications now ALSO have to participate in MOC just to maintain their pre-paid certificates?
I certainly hope not. If so, things could get ugly very quickly for everyone involved.
-Wes
6 comments:
I am in your boat too. I paid them $153 to avoid this headache. I am guilty
I two had to take these recertification exams and I was told that I did not need MOC until another 10 years. Another broken promise and a lie by the ABIM.
What is the status of the lawsuit against the ABIM?
I. The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) is an Iowa-based trade association registered in 1936, also known as INSTITUTION NO. 6741.
According to its true and original Articles of Incorporation, the ABIM should have been dissolved on or before Feb 28, 1986, at 5 PM.
Ironic. Just about the time the largest medical board was set to be rendered a dissolute entity (dissolved forever) the ABIM and ABMS introduced MOC.
For ABIM's Original Articles of Incorporation: See Polk County Iowa Records.
Contact Polk County Recorder Julie Haggerty
https://www.polkcountyiowa.gov/recorder/meet-the-recorder/
Read the original IX Articles of Incorporation carefully for yourself. (5 pages.)
It is liberating. The document may not free you from what the ABIM falsely and illegally requires with its accomplices, but it certainly frees the mind to see that the ABIM has truly deceived every physician in the country. They have let patients down.
The ABIM has devolved from being an exponent of FDR's NEW DEAL and morphed into the ABMS' corporate sponsored "NEW STEAL".
[The ABIM Foundation and the money transfers are good examples of the ABIM/ABMS' total mocover. Now the "NEW STEAL" executives use the non-profit public safety NGO for self-enrichment and clandestine healthcare agendas/lobbying/manipulating things on a global scale. Who do they work for?]
Everyone should have a copy of this original and authentic document for comparison to see the simple truth about the ABIM today. It is sickening when you see how bad they have made the medical profession.
ABIM executives don't even slightly resemble anything that could be called democratic. There is nothing equitable at all about their elitism and obscene paychecks.
The profession and the public need to be armed with the umbrella of facts about the ABIM. One needs to see clearly how far the ABIM has deviated from its original time-limited mission over the years.
Now instead of certification being 'for life', they have stripped it of meaning as someone wrote here. They lied to us. And it is not a voluntary participation in self-regulation at all. They lied about that too. Today certification and MOC are coerced, mandated and the ABMS and medical boards replaced self-regulation with autocratic regulation.
The organization is totally unrecognizable and corrupted today. Instead of honoring its initial pact of lifetime certification with physicians and closing its doors with a mission accomplished in 1986, the ABIM has morphed into a monstrous agent for corporate special interests and opportunistic self-enrichment projects and self-fulfilling political agendas.
Now instead of the ABIM being TIME-LIMITED, the new false regime at the helm of the ABIM has decreed that physicians are TIME-LIMITED pushing doctors over the cliff into the quality chasm. Just like Skinner's rats running through a maze.
They base this immoral and unjustifiable action on the fallacious premise that doctors instead of getting better in time, get worse with experience, self-study, peer review, and state-required annual CME.
What is MOC? MOC is the exclamation point in their litany of ABIM's lies!
I bet you never signed an agreement with them to suddenly be required to do the MOC points/busywork.
You paid for ten years and they still want your money and work upfront. You may have a valid fight if you did not sign any of their takeitorleaveit "pacts" after 2013/2014.
The two year Knowledge-checkins get everyone to create a contractual agreement and vulnerability every two years.
Ten years don't work with deferred accounting showing a huge loss every year.
You are rubbing on their Achilles heel and touching on a huge dilemma that they may have a new tier of grandfathers who are not required to do their MOC points. A bunch of ten-year grandfathers who are hurt by their sudden decision to go one step further in their racketeering. It could be a class action lawsuit.
They are cheaters trying to finess or threaten people into signing up.
What about refusing as your right to fight for what is right. You of all people have fought them. I know they are wrong from a moral standpoint and I see the financial corruption.
You can burn their flier as an expression of free speech. To protest this inhumanity of requiring MOC is an act of free speech. To protest something unjust and harmful is your right. Can they harm you for doing so? This gets more involved than just the money that they demand and your right to work at the institution of your choice. Your patients and students rights to have someone who thinks freely. Values inward exchange with life.
I also have a pre-paid ten year certificate that will expire in a few years. After being warned by the ABIM that my 10 year certification was going to be invalidated unless I did MOC points and paid them every year I just scrambled to do what they demanded. I am very confused by their policies, expectations for MOC points and demands for money. My employer requires ABMS board certification and so do the insurers, so there is little choice if I want to eat and pay rent. I have to pay for two certificates plus some other confusing fee to them. It seems split in two this year. It is always changing and I can't keep up with THEM. If they were out of my life I'd be so happy. To get the MOC points I have to go to more expensive conferences and pay extra for the MOC classes on a special day. I have to pay more for the extra hotel day and extra day off. Further to travel most of the time. I work part time cause the stress of full time with all the added burdens makes it impossible to have a life otherwise. Help!
Platinum Star Quote of the Day
Which silver spoon ABIM queen, when queried why she was not participating in MOC, said,
"Let THEM eat MOC!" (Referring to front-line doctors.)
If you know the answer and feel angry, don't bother calling ABIM's integrity hotline at
1-800-884-ABIM. Forget about e-mailing security@abim.org to report this hypocritical behavior.
It won't do any good to report conflicts of interest either. Rich sponsors
and consults from "Silicon Valley", private equity, and powerful "industry" pals (that ABIM claims to never receive money from) are crawling all over the place masquerading as doctors and board members.
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