Edging Toward the Tipping Point

We've seen the "We got it wrong" messages."

We've seen the "We're listening to our members" messages.

We've seen the "changes" to board certification: from the change from permanent certification to time-limited in 1986, from dropping the requirement for dual board certification for subspecialists to the requirement for just one subspecialty certification, and from board certification being about a more "continuous" requirement for education.

And we keep hearing the excuses by all 24 ABMS member boards that they really want to change the MOC program after all of the corruption of the system has been exposed over the past two years.

But what you won't hear about from anyone involved with the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) is anything about the money involved.

Practicing physicians are funding a profiteering racket.

This is what time-limited board certification is about, nothing more.

Proof of this can be found quite plainly at this website run by the American Board of Medical Specialties that promotes "ABMS Solutions." (video here).

ABMS "Solutions"sells "CertiFACTS Online®," "ABMS Certification Profile Service®," and "Direct Connect Select™" through Cactus, CredentialSmart, MD-Staff, and Vistar software systems.

We can see how the ABMS colludes with the Federation of State Medical Boards' (FSMB) newly-launched DocInfo service that "provides professional information on physicians and physician assistants licensed in the United States including information on disciplinary sanctions, education, medical specialty, licensure history and locations."

And now we see clearly how all of these privately-held non-profits of the 24 ABMS member boards are colluding together to prop up the very broken ABMS Specialty Board System financially:

Only CertiFACTS’ products connect professionals with board certification information that is updated daily with data provided by the 24 certifying ABMS Member Boards.

Physician ABMS board certification status, updated daily, and shot to a certification database near you. All for the low, low price of hundreds of millions of dollars a year and funded (in part) by every US physician.

It doesn't matter what new changes each of the member boards of the ABMS propose to change Maintenance of Certification (MOC).  The whole time-limited ABMS board certification is all about the money.

Always has been.

This is just one example of how the money pipeline overrides the welfare of the physician and their patients.

Between surveys, productivity ratios, data entry requirements, and now the board certification monopoly created by the ABMS,  I wonder how far the System thinks it can go before our new nation of employee-physicians unionize.

-Wes

Nurse's Union Sets New Definition of 'First Aid'

The Occupy Wall Street protests continued in Chicago and the nurses unions are dispensing a new form of "first aid:"

Outraged by the arrest of two nurses and a union organizer volunteering at the Occupy Chicago protest over the weekend, National Nurses United is planning a protest at Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office Monday.

The group, the nation's largest union of registered nurses, is calling on its membership in Chicago to picket City Hall on Monday morning to demand that misdemeanor trespassing charges against the nurses and all of the protesters be dropped.

The two nurses arrested were among a larger group marching with Occupy Chicago protesters and later set up a tent to provide first aid.

"It was the wrong move," RoseAnn DeMoro, the group's executive director, said Sunday. "We were there to make sure if the occupiers get harmed, they have first aid."

But pictures from the event in Chicago and elsewhere where the group was protesting suggests another more subliminal story line. In this picture the Twitter stream from the National Nurses United union, the police appeared restrained and tolerant of the protestors:

So what kind of "first aid" was being rendered in their tent?

Here are a few pictures from the same group's "first aid" tent in San Francisco taken from the same Twitter feed:

Hmmm. Were there donuts were in those boxes?

Shucks. Maybe not:

Well, no donuts, but there sure was plenty of splashy red nurses union propaganda available for sympathetic protestors to consume as "first aid."

-Wes

Strong-arming Caregivers

"Hey Sally, us guys wanna help you wid your kid, see? Maybe gets you a few more dollas, ya know. All ya gots to do is sign dis here form and we'll take care of da rest, capeesh?"

"Uh, I'm not sure I really want unions representing me as I care for my son at home."

"Whatdyamean? Everybody knows dat da governor here in Illinois is on board. Heck he allowed collective bargaining by, ya know, 'individual providers of home-based support services.' So dat means you, Sally. We're nothing but angels, really."

"Are you saying I can go on strike and not wipe my son's rear end?"

"Hey, not so harsh, Sally! You know we'd never suggest such a thing! Look, for a mere $2000 a year, we'll represent your interests down state. It'll be nothin' but roses, seriously. I mean, look at 'em. No one's got answers on nuthin' down der. Ain't it time to make some heads roll? Comeon, Sal. Sign da form."

-Wes