ABIM MOC certification requirements

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nephappl

nephappl

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All:
Please review this, if you think is fair sign the petition.
We all have certification, recertification, CME, hospital requirements. This ABIM thing is already too much
Do not know if it will work but signing the petition does not hurt
Thanks
NA

This is the Link

http://e.crf.org/e/35122/petitions-recallmoc/54tt/6799646


Opened on March 10, 2014

The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) has recently created Maintenance of Certification (MOC) requirements which add significant time and expense to board certification. Beginning in 2014, to be reported as "Meeting MOC Requirements," physicians must sign up for a complex system requiring they complete MOC activities every two years and pay significantly higher fees.

The undersigned believe:


1) ABIM has made unreasonable changes in MOC requiring more frequent participation and higher fees


2) Scientific data indicating MOC provides benefit is lacking


3) Via either personal experience with MOC or the experience of our colleagues, we believe the MOC activities are complex, have questionable value, and detract from more worthwhile pursuits, including patient care and other educational activities, i.e. CME


4) A test administered every ten years for recertificationis a sufficient metric for MOC


5) Therefore, we call on ABIM to recall the changes in MOC and institute a simple pathway consisting of a recertification test every ten years





If you support this petition, please send it to your colleagues and your hospital medical staff office for distribution.


Supported by Physicians for Accreditation Change
 
Anesthesia has this now. Q10y simulation at $1500-2000, exam $1600 and certification of ongoing CQI. We also have to doc 250 h T1 CME. There are other limitations to number of units of CME you can get per year and the amount you need before taking the test and you can't take the test and the simulation in the same year, etcetera, etcetera all to keep you locked into the system and paying more money. There is a way to get out of doing the simulation, which only lasts half a day, but it is difficult and it would require dozens and dozens of hours of work. I don't know about internal medicine, but if you are not board certified in anesthesia, you're going to find it difficult getting a job outside of somewhere very remote and undesirable.
 
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Aren't they already getting sued over this?
 
They will win. It's a money and power grab cloaked in the guise of pt safety. They have the ball and get to make the rules. The really strange part is that the indefinite peeps will still be listed as not maintaining a cert that can't expire. I can't imagine any of them will care.

OTOH, I felt zero guilt letting medicine expire, so thanks Dr Holmboe.


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Gastrapathy said:
OTOH, I felt zero guilt letting medicine expire, so thanks Dr Holmboe.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

The anesthesia board has seen this coming and requires Maintenance of Certification in Anesthesia for participation in sub specialty certification. 🙁 So add another $1800 or so Q10 for that.
 
nephappl said:
All:
Please review this, if you think is fair sign the petition.
We all have certification, recertification, CME, hospital requirements. This ABIM thing is already too much
Do not know if it will work but signing the petition does not hurt
Thanks
NA


Supported by Physicians for Accreditation Change
Click to expand...

Now they even added this silly new thing where you have to have 25 patients do a patient survey. To maintain certification, you have to keep giving out these surveys to your patients until at least 25 of them have completed the telephone survey to the ABIM. Now you have to rely on these patients who can't even remember to take their own meds to remember to do a telephone survey with the ABIM. You have to sit back and wait and you can't get certified until these patients complete the survey. Brilliant. This is what certification has come to?

The big wigs at the ABIM are getting very, very rich off of this crap. Word is that the president of the ABIM makes upwards of $800K a year.
 
LoudBark said:
Now they even added this silly new thing where you have to have 25 patients do a patient survey. To maintain certification, you have to keep giving out these surveys to your patients until at least 25 of them have completed the telephone survey to the ABIM. Now you have to rely on these patients who can't even remember to take their own meds to remember to do a telephone survey with the ABIM. You have to sit back and wait and you can't get certified until these patients complete the survey. Brilliant. This is what certification has come to?

The big wigs at the ABIM are getting very, very rich off of this crap. Word is that the president of the ABIM makes upwards of $800K a year.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the other day I was estimating how many patients I would need to give this survey to in order to get 25 completed responses. I'm guessing only 1 in 10 might successfully finish it, so I'm thinking 250. It will probably be more. When the Powers That Be came up with nonsense like this, were they sitting around a table and laughing? Were they trying to devise something just ridiculous enough to be thoroughly amusing to them, but not so bat-**** crazy that it was an obvious troll job?
 
LoudBark said:
Now they even added this silly new thing where you have to have 25 patients do a patient survey. To maintain certification, you have to keep giving out these surveys to your patients until at least 25 of them have completed the telephone survey to the ABIM. Now you have to rely on these patients who can't even remember to take their own meds to remember to do a telephone survey with the ABIM. You have to sit back and wait and you can't get certified until these patients complete the survey. Brilliant. This is what certification has come to?

The big wigs at the ABIM are getting very, very rich off of this crap. Word is that the president of the ABIM makes upwards of $800K a year.
Click to expand...

Toothpaste and/or tooth whitening must cost more than 800K:


"MOC as a professionally created activity, informed by the wisdom of expert clinicians"
 
Why do we, as a profession, put up with nonsense like this? That too from a for-profit independent agency whose motto is just to make money and nothing to do with patient care. And moreover it is greed like this from our own that hurts us in the long run. How is doing busy work going to make you a better physician is beyond me? But ABIM, like sharks, can smell blood miles away and are not going to let this cash cow slip away that easily.
 
CanIMakeIt said:
Why do we, as a profession, put up with nonsense like this? That too from a for-profit independent agency whose motto is just to make money and nothing to do with patient care. And moreover it is greed like this from our own that hurts us in the long run. How is doing busy work going to make you a better physician is beyond me? But ABIM, like sharks, can smell blood miles away and are not going to let this cash cow slip away that easily.
Click to expand...
Pretty sure the ABMS and subsidiaries are technically non-profits.
 
I am triple Board certified and have recertified in all three areas for the last 20 years; it is a money making (for the board) scam that gets more onerous and costly with every cycle and does nothing to improve ANYTHING about my medical practice. It will only persist, spread and worsen if doctors let it. Join the fight. Go to Changeboardrecert.com and see what you can do to put an end to this.
 
I will bitch about it publicly, but behind the scenes I have signed up for MOC. I don't see a choice, it is blackmail but I don't want to be the one not to get privileges while screaming about the scam that is MOC.

The 35 patient survey is completely unreasonable though. I answered "no" at first on the survey, and then it had some bitchy reply along the lines of: "why are you physically unable to pass out surveys???"
 
I signed up. Paid for it. I'm not in any kind of position not to right now - currently getting my credentialing and waiting to sit for my subspecialty boards. I don't play to maintain my IM cert later and it doesn't look like I'll have to once I have your sub-specalty cert, though . . . you will be out the money
 
FWIW, while my contract says I have to be BC within the first 5 years of employment with my group, my credentialing agreementswith 4 different hospital systems (8 hospitals actually, I mis-spoke above) only say I have to be BE. I imagine that when the credentialing comes around again in 2 years (just cleared it last month actually), they may require MOC. But for now...F*&k it.

Any patient who won't see me just because I'm not "MOC certified" is a patient I don't want anyway (I got enough bats**t crazy patients already, but thanks). Anybody who asks? I'll tell them why not.
 
jdh71 said:
I signed up. Paid for it. I'm not in any kind of position not to right now - currently getting my credentialing and waiting to sit for my subspecialty boards. I don't play to maintain my IM cert later and it doesn't look like I'll have to once I have your sub-specalty cert, though . . . you will be out the money
Click to expand...

gutonc said:
FWIW, while my contract says I have to be BC within the first 5 years of employment with my group, my credentialing agreementswith 4 different hospital systems (8 hospitals actually, I mis-spoke above) only say I have to be BE. I imagine that when the credentialing comes around again in 2 years (just cleared it last month actually), they may require MOC. But for now...F*&k it.

Any patient who won't see me just because I'm not "MOC certified" is a patient I don't want anyway (I got enough bats**t crazy patients already, but thanks). Anybody who asks? I'll tell them why not.
Click to expand...

As JDH said, I just dont want there to be any hickups in my eligibility to sit for my subspecialty boards. My hospital recommended signing up, so I just went with it.

The problem with explaining to patients, is that you will just likely never see them. The wording is meant to be scary: "Not meeting MOC requirements"

Would you want to see a doctor not meeting his maintenance requirements?? How dare he/she!

They will go see the other guy who is certified, even though we all know it means nothing. If I needed to hire a contractor, I would go with the "certified" guy.
 
IM2GI said:
As JDH said, I just dont want there to be any hickups in my eligibility to sit for my subspecialty boards. My hospital recommended signing up, so I just went with it.

The problem with explaining to patients, is that you will just likely never see them. The wording is meant to be scary: "Not meeting MOC requirements"

Would you want to see a doctor not meeting his maintenance requirements?? How dare he/she!

They will go see the other guy who is certified, even though we all know it means nothing. If I needed to hire a contractor, I would go with the "certified" guy.
Click to expand...
Right...but it's not that I'm not certified, just that I'm not MOC, whatever. In any case, I'll be doing it for my sub-specialty when needed but didn't want the extra cost/hassle for IM right now.

Also, just went to the ABIM website (to check dates for subspecialty exam this year) and noticed that they've pushed back the deadline to the end of this month because of "overwhelming demand" (read - "pending lawsuit"). So I'm even less concerned about it now.
 
gutonc said:
Right...but it's not that I'm not certified, just that I'm not MOC, whatever. In any case, I'll be doing it for my sub-specialty when needed but didn't want the extra cost/hassle for IM right now.

Also, just went to the ABIM website (to check dates for subspecialty exam this year) and noticed that they've pushed back the deadline to the end of this month because of "overwhelming demand" (read - "pending lawsuit"). So I'm even less concerned about it now.
Click to expand...

lol
 
I have taken and passed IM, Pulmonary and Critical Care and recertified once. Where I am there is a shortage of physicians. Board certification is not required by hospitals or insurance.
I want to keep up in my field but I do not need to recertify again
It is not worth the paper it is printed on and I will not take it again
 
lungdocCA said:
Board certification is not required by hospitals or insurance.
Click to expand...
Lest someone come in and take this piece of advice for Gospel/Talmud/Koran/Bhagavad Gita truth, while this may be true of the hospital where you practice, it is not universally so.

I have privileges at 11 different hospitals, part of 5 different health systems in 2 states and every single one of them requires me to be board certified in order to maintain my privileges.

Not arguing that it's not a bulls**t racket. Just that your experience may not be as generalizable as you think.
 
Does the NBPAS alternative board certification satisfy any of those requirements gutonc?


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So the rest of the places allowed it? If so I'm impressed with the ground NBPAS has been able to cover.


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KLycos said:
So the rest of the places allowed it? If so I'm impressed with the ground NBPAS has been able to cover.
Click to expand...
No. As soon as one place said no, and I knew I'd need to do ABIM MOC for one of them, I figured it was a waste of time for the rest. I still have (and submit) NBPAS certification to all of them alongside ABIM though.
 
Anyone actually boycotting this MOC business? I keep getting emails about re-enrolling since I havent done it since initial time and to be honest, don't really feel inclined that I need to
 
jdh71 said:
I signed up. Paid for it. I'm not in any kind of position not to right now - currently getting my credentialing and waiting to sit for my subspecialty boards. I don't play to maintain my IM cert later and it doesn't look like I'll have to once I have your sub-specalty cert, though . . . you will be out the money
Click to expand...

Does anyone have experience with this? I had initially signed up for maintaining MOC and was able to sit for Pulm boards. Now I keep getting emails from ABIM to sign up to maintain MOC. I plan to take the Crit Care boards; not sure if it is needed or not to take them. If it is, I guess everyone sitting for subspecialty boards may have to sign up.
 
Check with your employer and the hospital(s) that credential you. If none of them require it, you might be ok.

But read the fine print very closely...I have heard (but not read myself) that if you don't submit to MOC, you may not be eligible to sit for your recertification exam.

Caveat testor.
 
gutonc said:
Check with your employer and the hospital(s) that credential you. If none of them require it, you might be ok.

But read the fine print very closely...I have heard (but not read myself) that if you don't submit to MOC, you may not be eligible to sit for your recertification exam.

Caveat testor.
Click to expand...

I believe you are right. I parsed through the ABIM website. Looks like to recertify, you have to be "enrolled in MOC" which requires paying money. I do not believe you need to be enrolled in MOC to sit for the initial certification.
 
ResidentMD said:
I believe you are right. I parsed through the ABIM website. Looks like to recertify, you have to be "enrolled in MOC" which requires paying money. I do not believe you need to be enrolled in MOC to sit for the initial certification.
Click to expand...
You can't be enrolled in maintenance of certification if you don't already have certification.
 
gutonc said:
You can't be enrolled in maintenance of certification if you don't already have certification.
Click to expand...

I meant it more from the standpoint of being listed as "enrolled in MOC" for IM, to be able to take the subspecialty boards. Appears as though that is not necessary, at least as far as I can tell.
 
You know it makes you wonder: why don't they make physicians re-license every 10 years too? (take Step 1, 2, 3, all over again). I want to make sure my physician knows the Kreb cycle. I'm being factitious of course...but when you think about it, the same logic could apply for re-licensure as it does for re-board certification.

Do you guys know of anyone who has refused to do MOC, and has subsequently had trouble finding employment? I can't imagine it in primary care.
 
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