I really hope that the AOA delegates ratify the Voluntary Board Certification plan (sources I have spoke to in the AOA say it is likely) and Optometry can stop being the "oh we have the FAAO instead" profession---excuses and nonsense. The FAAO is an awesome credential (one that I want too) but it is not a substitute. The only thing that the public recognizes and other health care professionals recognize is Board Certification. Medicare and Medicaid will cut costs by requiring it in the future for reimbursement. This is a "voluntary" thing-----you don't have to do it but honestly, there is a 99% chance that I will do a residency and I WANT to have the option of Board Certification for MYSELF. The model the JBCPT has drawn up closely resembles the American Board of Family Medicine and allows for an OD who completed a residency within 3 yrs to immediately sit for the Board Certification Exam or if you have no residency verifiable 3 yrs of clinical practice is required. Either case you don't HAVE to do it but OD's who want the highest attainable level of recognition beyond entry level practice SHOULD have the option. Nobody outside of optometry understands or cares about FAAO but they do care about the term "BOARD CERTIFIED". I get asked ALL THE TIME by my friends in medicine and podiatry why we don't have this when I talk to them about it. Let's move forward please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please....let's be serious now.
I have been in practice nearly 10 years. Not once, not even so much as a single time has any patient, family member, friend, physician, dentist, podiatrist, chiropractor, pharmacist, physical therapist, physicians assistant, nurse, waitress, cab driver, or person sitting next to me on an airplane who found out I was an OD asked me about board certification or if I was board certified. The reason YOUR friends are asking is because YOU bring it up.
For the 100th time, I'll point out again....
The AOA is going to pass it because they have already decided to despite the overwhelming opposition to it amongst their rank and file membership. The AOA and the JCBPTCSOD or whatever the hell it's called has already made up their minds.
No one who is PRO BC has been able to answer any of these questions for me AT ALL.
1) Board Certification will almost certainly NOT get us any more access to medical plans and will almost certainly NOT get us any more reimbursement from the plans we DO have access to. The net result is yet another expensive, time consuming hoop for ODs to jump through that will result in us making the same money, with the same limited access. At BEST, it will do nothing. At WORST, it will be just another thing for VSP or Eyemed to require ODs to do so that they can continue to reimburse us $40 an exam. I have never ever ONCE in my almost 10 years in this business been denied access to any medical plan, hospital, nursing home, etc. etc. because I wasn't board certified or board eligible. Don't think for a second that this won't happen. You claim it's voluntary and it might be just that for the first couple of years but it's only a matter of (short) time before VSP and Eyemed and the major optometric players require board certification to be on their piss poor paying panels. This will make it defacto NOT voluntary. It will also basically mean that we will ALL have to end up "board certified" which basically means that NONE of us will be board certified because we will ALL have that extra silly little plaque (that we paid thousands of dollars for) to hang on the wall.
2) Optometric board certification as it is being discussed will not be comparable in any way, shape or form to medical, dental, or podiatric board certification. That will pretty much guarantee that we get absolutely no more respect or deference from our medical colleagues. If anything, it will draw more of their ire. I can here the chorus of MDs now..."Oh look....how cute....they think they're board certified. Kitchy Kitchy koo."
3) Board certification will almost certainly not garner us any more respect or deference from the general public. BC or not, we will still be widely regarded as the eyeglass guys who work in the mall.
4) In THEORY, board certification SHOULD allow for more licensure portability but even those in power who are proponents of BC have pretty much all but admitted that that won't happen.
5) There is already a mechanism in place to show competency beyond initial licensure and that is fellowship in the AAO. The AAO has different sections that practitioners can obtain expertise in and the culmination of that process is a difficult examination. Why are we trying to reinvent the wheel here? You say that the FAAO is NOT a substitute. WHY NOT? It involves the accumulation of points through residency, case studies, published papers, etc. etc. followed by an examination. How is that different from the proposed BC?
6) A study by the Kaiser foundation found NO DIFFERENCE in practice patterns, or malpractice rates between those doctors who are board certified and those who aren't. Where is the continuing competency or the advanced competency??
I'm still an optometrist.
