How important is it to be Board Certified in your specialty?

[Chief Resident]

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I've seen lots of job ads for physicians for both private and university-based jobs state the physician has to be BE/BC (board eligible/board certified). From what I've been told you are BE when you finish an accredited residency. So what are the advantages of being BC?

 

[docB]

You need to be board certified. I don't know of any groups where you can coast on the BE status indefinitely. Some groups have hard clauses written into their contracts about the time frame you have before you have to get certified. Others will just informally pressure you until you take the test or leave. For most groups the contract with the hospital requires BC docs so they aren't going to mess around with something that could scuttle the contract.

Ok, I forgot I was in the general forum and not the EM forum (and I am BC so it can't be that hard). The above goes for EM. For other stuff the reasons to be BC are that you are more attractive to pt's (as a doctor, BC does nothing for your looks 😉 ), you get more referrals, you are better off in a lawsuit, you can get priveledges much more easily and probably most importantly you can bill more effectively. Many insurers won't reimburse people who aren't BC.

 

[southerndoc]

Most hospitals now require their physicians to be board-certified before they are granted priviledges to admit patients. There is usually a grace period of a year or two after residency or fellowship.

One of our hospitals is now requiring testing of nurses and physicians for malpractice insurance reasons. They are requiring this because the health system is getting a fairly substantial discount on malpractice insurance by doing this. The test is administered by an independent agency, and you are given two attempts to pass it. If you don't pass it, the health system is arranging for remediation. The testing never ends, even after board certification.

 

[edinOH]

There are some rural hospitals down here in Louisiana that don't even know what that word means. They think it means being certified by the parole board to continue practicing yer docter'n.

If you are happy making 90 bucks an hour to "staff" an ER and have a knack for killing patients quietly, you could do quite well without board certification.

When me or some of my fellow residents go down to some of these places to pick up a few shifts, it is almost like Rosen himself just walked in and started pulling charts! And I'm not saying that as a way to brag on myself or my colleagues, if you know what I mean. To your first pt you want to say, "Ma'm, it's shift change and I just saved your life...and you don't even know it."

 

[lilycat]

You need to be board certified. I don't know of any groups where you can coast on the BE status indefinitely. Some groups have hard clauses written into their contracts about the time frame you have before you have to get certified. Others will just informally pressure you until you take the test or leave. For most groups the contract with the hospital requires BC docs so they aren't going to mess around with something that could scuttle the contract.

Ok, I forgot I was in the general forum and not the EM forum (and I am BC so it can't be that hard). The above goes for EM. For other stuff the reasons to be BC are that you are more attractive to pt's (as a doctor, BC does nothing for your looks 😉 ), you get more referrals, you are better off in a lawsuit, you can get priveledges much more easily and probably most importantly you can bill more effectively. Many insurers won't reimburse people who aren't BC.

Same applies for anesthesia, and I have a sneaking suspicion it applies to the majority of fields in medicine.

It's not an "advantage" of being board certified -- you need to be board certified. I just went on an interview in anesthesia on Monday, and the education director was asking us the cost of not passing the boards after residency grad -- most of us responded with what we thought the cost of the test was. He said it was more like $300K -- the cost of one year's salary at the partnership level. He told us that your job is never stable until you have passed your boards, because you can be let go very easily (if you work for an academic center or a group practice), and you will not make partner in a group until you are BC, which is what gives you job security in the private sector. The reasons for this are as docB stated -- hospital contracts are usually made on the grounds that all the physicians are BC, and I believe malpractice rates for some specialties will reflect lower rates when you are actually BC.