Monday, June 10, 2019

Plaintiffs Respond to ABPN's Motion to Dismiss

The recently-filed plaintiffs' Opposition to the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology's (ABPN) Motion to Dismiss concisely summarizes the legal issues with Maintenance of Certification (MOC):
ABPN sells initial certifications to new doctors to demonstrate satisfactory completion of their graduate medical education. ABPN has a 100 percent market share in the market for initial certifications, possessing monopoly (and market) power. ABPN also sells a maintenance of certification product to older psychiatrists and neurologists (“MOC”). According to ABPN, MOC tests something it calls “lifelong learning.” ABPN sold initial certifications for more than sixty years before it began selling MOC. ABPN forces doctors to buy MOC or have their initial certifications terminated, illegally tying its MOC product to its initial certification product in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.

Psychiatrists and neurologists do not want to purchase MOC or would prefer to buy “lifelong learning” products from other providers, but cannot without ABPN terminating their initial certifications subjecting them to substantial economic consequences. In this way, ABPN holds each doctor’s initial certification hostage and controls the maintenance of certification market. Through these and other anticompetitive acts ABPN also has a nearly 100 percent market share in the separate maintenance of certification market. It obtained and continues to maintain its monopoly position in that market in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act.
Plain an simple.

Let's hope the truth will set us free.

-Wes

5 comments:

  1. 100 percent market share of their captive clients!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The dereliction of their stated mission of serving the public in lieu of serving themselves

    MOC is obviously a separate lucrative product tied to certification, invented by the ABMS/medical specialty boards and their partners for the generation of enormous profits/paychecks for themselves.

    MOC, because it is tied to certification and employment/reimbursement, has become a veritable cash cow for a whole host of vendor partners such as Pearson Vue, Wolters Kluwer (UpToDate), Phynd, FigMD, NCQA, ACP, FSMB, Premier, Inc, Caveon/Kryterion, law offices, Medical Specialty Societies, board review companies, Universities, unknown numbers of data registries and analytics corporation, cloud service companies, venture capital groups, investors, non-profit hospitals, for-profit hospitals, insurance companies, EHR vendors, and on and on.

    Here's another start-up company cashing-in big with nearly 200 million in investment money received from "Wall Street" so far. Echo360. See links below.
    ABPN captive clients might consider hitting the privacy complaint button and putting an end to the gold digging.

    https://mghcme.org/courses/course-detail/anxiety_and_obsessive-compulsive_disorders_moc_self-assessment_module

    https://craft.co/echo360

    https://echo360.com/continuing-education/platform-privacy-policy/

    https://sap-brc.hrsonline.org/board-review-course/faq

    ReplyDelete
  3. The periodicity of payment/data entry demanded by ABMS and the specialty boards is telling. It has gone from lifetime, to ten-year, to five-year, to two-year to every year, to every month and now to every day. It shows that MOC is an out-of-control money hungry/data/power/cash grab and little else.

    ABPN changes to MOC taking advantage of "feedback" to create even more onerous conditions for physicians

    "September 5, 2017, Buffalo Grove, Ill -- The American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN) is pleased
    to announce plans for significant changes in its program for lifelong learning and continuing certification, also
    known as maintenance of certification (MOC). These changes are the result of ongoing discussion by the
    ABPN as well as feedback from its diplomates and related professional societies. Diplomates will be provided
    with greater flexibility and more relevant and meaningful options for meeting ABPN requirements."

    https://www.abpn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/ABPN-Changes-in-MOC-Program.pdf

    ReplyDelete
  4. AWS, ABMS, EPIC, CERNER and partners

    Physicians are feeding the cloud enablers without knowing it (or the extent of it).
    Through data mining and block chain technology we are feeding the crypto-currency markets.

    https://www.simplilearn.com/the-cloud-computing-and-cryptocurrency-article

    ReplyDelete
  5. ABPN examination and MOC are not even listed as "educational revenues". They are listed as other using the 541900 tax code. See for yourself that it is all a educational scam. Read the tax forms. Look at the money the ABPN President made in 2017. $2,872,861‬. That is obscene. Scandalous. Egregious when physician salaries are being squeezed by the tech companies that are siphoning the money from the healthcare pool. Physicians are being replaced by automation and artificial (automated) intelligence and low level peronnel to deliver messages to patients so the patient can pay and stay home. A real cost savings!

    IRS tax code guide ABPN uses 541900 "scientific and technical item 'other'" to define their examination fees and MOC, etc. There is an educational category btw, but they don't qualify, but they would qualify for data collection.
    https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/10eoinstr.pdf

    ReplyDelete

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