Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Is ABIM Ending Its "Knowledge Check-In" MOC® Pathway?

The following (redacted) email was received from Morgan Allen, Customer Relationship Advocate at the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), in response to an ABIM diplomate that was unable register online for their every-two year Knowledge Check-In "continuous" Maintenance of Certification (MOC®) product.

According to this email, it seems the ABIM has decided to end its Knowledge Check-In recertification pathway and only permit its every-10-year high-stakes recertification examination for physicians to remain ABIM Board Certified.

At the time of this writing, I could find no public notification of this policy change on ABIM's website. Once again, working physicians are irresponsibly left uncertain of the latest requirements to remain ABIM Board Certified in good standing.

ABIM has a long history of changing the rules for the names and requirements for physician board recertification/maintenance of certification/continuous certification. But despite the many name and rule changes of this racket, each rebranding becomes more expensive and serves to perpetuate the discrimination against younger physicians and physicians of color from senior "grandfathered" physicians who are not required to purchase these products to retain their ABIM Board Certified status. The Knowledge Check-In recertification pathway was no different from its predecessors in this respect. But the Knowledge Check-In pathway also suffered from a plethora of technical, security, and (undisclosed) privacy issues for physicians. (See my earlier video that critically reviewed this recertification pathway and the people who created it.)

One thing is a constant, however. Ever since the ABIM changed Board certification from a lifetime to time-limited physician marketing accolade, this unproven repeated testing of working physicians remains a career-long psychological and economic stressor that distracts from what matters most: patient care.

-Wes