The ABFM Travesty
All family doctors hate the burdens placed upon us by American Board of Family Medicine. The testing is useless, the requirements are bogus and they are getting rich off our dime. NO ONE likes them. Recently, they sent out this letter to all family docs:
Dear Colleague,
I would like to take a brief moment to introduce myself. My name is Carlos Roberto Jaén and I currently serve as Chairman of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. I also serve as Chair of the ABFM Board of Directors, and would like to introduce the other members of the Board of Directors:
Elizabeth G. Baxley, M.D. Greenville, NC
Diane K. Beebe, M.D. Jackson, MS
Laura M. Brooks, M.D. Lynchburg, VA
Alan K. David, M.D. Milwaukee, WI
Montgomery Douglas, M.D. Valhalla, NY
Joseph W. Gravel, Jr, M.D. North Reading, MA
Jimmy H. Hara, M.D. Los Angeles, CA
James Kennedy, M.D. Winter Park, CO
Jerry E. Kruse, M.D. Springfield, IL
Lorna Anne Lynn, M.D. Wynnewood, PA
Christine C. Matson, M.D. Norfolk, VA
David W. Mercer, M.D. Omaha, NE
Marcia J. Nielsen, PhD, MPH Lawrence, KS
Kailie R. Shaw, M.D. Tampa, FL
David E. Soper, M.D. Mt. Pleasant, SC
Keith L. Stelter, M.D. Mankato, MN
While your interactions with the ABFM may be largely related to certification, the non-profit ABFM has many purposes and goals. These objectives include: certification, research, leadership development, establishment of training standards, and collaboration with other organizations to promote the health of the public. The ABFM is not a membership organization. It is completely distinct from the membership organization for family physicians—the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).As a practicing family physician, I am acutely aware of the many pressures involved in your commitment to provide excellent family medicine. The numerous national, state, and local regulations continue to compete with our time with patients. As Board Chair, I hear from some family physicians that Maintenance of Certification (MC-FP) can be just one more of the distractions from practice. I want to address four frequently voiced concerns, and let you know what the ABFM is doing about these issues.
Issue 1: The MC-FP process is too time consuming.
From a historical perspective, the time required to maintain our certificate has not changed much. The self-reported time that the vast majority of family physicians take to complete a module is between 3 – 5 hours. The ABFM requires ONE module per year. So the time it should take to maintain your certificate is less than five hours per year. In the 1980s and 1990s, the ABFM required a chart review prior to sitting for the examination. From my own experience, this chart review took significantly more time to prepare than five hours.
For that 5-hour commitment per year, each physician gets CME credits upon completing a module. Because all of us desire to stay up-to-date with medicine, we all complete a number of CME activities each year. The ABFM module is online, self-directed, and can be completed bit-by-bit over the course of a year. And just in case you have some extenuating circumstances, the ABFM Stage process lets you complete the required modules anytime within the 3-year stage. If you procrastinate until December of the last Stage, it may take you about 15 hours to complete all of your modules. Completing one a year will avoid getting into a last minute bind. If for some reason you are taking significantly longer to complete a module, please contact our Support Center (877-223-7437, or [email protected]) for assistance. The support center agents can help you complete this online module in the most efficient manner.
Issue 2: The MC-FP process is too expensive.
Again, let’s look at this from a historical perspective. In 2004, the cost of the ABFM certification examination was $950. Over a seven-year timeframe, that works out approximately $135 per year. That expense was solely for the examination. An exam that previously was given in one of 20 hotels spread across the US on only one day per year. For those entering MC-FP in 2014, the cost is $200 per year (for nine years) plus $250 in year ten when the exam is taken for a total of $2050, or just over $200 per year. For that expense you get: (1) an extended certificate of 10 years (meaning fewer examinations over the course of a career and fewer external costs associated with taking the exam—study, travel, lodging, etc.), (2) included payment for your next examination (now given at over 300 test centers across the US and most of the world on one of 20 dates in either April or November), and (3) at least 100 CME credits (up to over 500 credits for no additional cost). The extra $65 per year does not even consider the cost of living increase over that 10-year period. In fact, once you have completed a three-year stage and paid the necessary fees, you may complete as many modules as you wish and obtain CME credit for each. We also allow for the prepayment of the process so that the total cost over the ten year period can be fixed and there is no risk of increasing prices. If you were part of the cohort that entered MC-FP in 2004, the annual fee paid for the process was $200 per year. The same as it is today.
In addition, the $200 per year MC-FP expense includes: update and regeneration of the examination questions, creation and update of the Part II SAMs, development and update of the Part IV QI activities, and support for approving externally developed activities (e.g., AAFP Metric, PCMH, self-directed QI activities).
The ABFM works hard to maintain the lowest possible fees for MC-FP, and the ABFM Board looks at the cost of MC-FP very closely. The Board of Directors is committed to providing the best service at the lowest possible cost to our physicians.
Issue 3: There is no evidence MC-FP works to improve care
When the MC-FP process was first developed, the ABFM committed itself to studying the process. We further committed to the family physicians that if the process did not show an empirical improvement in patient care, we would change the system. Beginning in 2006, we began collaborating with external colleagues to begin studying MC-FP. In 2012, we hired internal staff to conduct evidence-based research on MC-FP. The list of publications in peer-reviewed journals may be found here: www.theabfm.org/research/topic.aspx
To date, this growing body of evidence shows a positive relationship between maintenance of certification and patient outcomes. In addition to our own work, the American Board of Medical Specialties maintains a website for published articles across all specialties: evidencelibrary.abms.org
Issue 4: The Future of MC-FP
As you have heard before, the ABFM strategy is to move from an organization that simply measures knowledge to one that measures quality outcomes and helps family physicians deliver the best possible care to their patients. However, it will take some time and effort to reach this goal. In the meantime, we must work to continuously improve the assessment tools that we currently use.
While the ABFM remains aware that the first generation of MC-FP activities can always improve, the ABFM and its Board of Directors are committed to working toward a better system that is more integrated into what physicians do each day. An article from our most recent newsletter highlights two of these efforts to make your ongoing QI activities seamlessly integrate into the MC-FP requirements (www.theabfm.org/about/newslettersummer.aspx). In addition, your constructive feedback has led to many positive changes in the MC-FP process. Just this week we made over 40 updates to SAM questions. Nearly all of those updates were generated by comments made by family physicians regarding newer research in some aspect of medicine. We are continuously searching for ways to make the process more convenient for our physicians while also continuing to maintain its effectiveness.
Another newsletter article related to you our vision for the dynamic, real-time assessment of quality data from physician practices using technology that would constantly query the electronic health record (Winter 2012 — www.theabfm.org/about/newsletter.aspx). Doing so would allow us to assess practice data and repurpose it into quality dashboards that would allow you to continuously monitor and improve the quality of care that you deliver to your patients. We have embarked on the development of this next generation Part IV product this year, and while we know that it will take many years to develop this technology, we believe that it is the right thing to do to further promote your efforts to deliver excellent care.
The vast majority of family physicians continue to participate in MC-FP, and we continue to look for ways to make the process better. We have always encouraged your constructive feedback and will continue to work to make all of our products better. Thank you for all you do for the benefit of the patients and communities you serve.
Sincerely,
Carlos Roberto Jaén, MD
I read this and laughed. Before I could rip them, someone sent me the letter they replied with. It is perfect:
Dr. Jaen,
1- I am delighted that you chair both the San Antonio program and the ABFM. Don’t try to tell us that you have any idea about running a practice or a small business… or how to tell when we’re being hustled.
2- An honest organization that selects “…the establishment of training standards…” would de facto exclude itself from the sales of products required for certification. ABFM is prima facia dishonest in the way it has forced this entire invented product line onto unwary Family Docs.
3- Why are “…research, leadership development, … and collaboration with other organizations to promote the health of the public…” even a part of the ABFM mission? That is the role of membership organization as you insist that you are not. Mission creep is not tolerable where certification is enough.
4- Those of us who are voracious consumers of CME do not have time for fluff.. Your time estimate is self generous. It is also unjustifiable. After completing a 3 hour CME on pain management, I was then told that to get SAM credit, I would have to pay an additional $200 and spend 2-4 hours of my time doing a chart review to complete the SAM. Exactly how was that going to improve the care I give my patients? Swing and a Miss on cost and time. You can’t just impound my CME time as wholly owed to ABFM and call it even on time. You invented a new product line and then demanded it be purchased on penalty of losing certification. Not honest.
5- Yours is an entirely new time demand that is added on, not substituted, for those of us who wish to have a choice in CME purchases.
6- Cost. This a new cost. How dare you rave about your cost of doing business -developing questions and modules- as though it were some great feat? That is how business is done. I get the feeling that you have no idea about how to run a real business. Further, let us not get too wound up in the fact that testing -from the SAT to the MCAT to the ABFM- has changed in the form of testing centers. The simple fact that you are both requiring the specific CME selections and selling -as the only purveyor- the same selections, is wrong.
7- The evidence. Let us start with the fact that this behemoth was started with no evidence. Just required. And just happens to generate millions of dollars of revenue. Exactly who is going to believe that once established ABFM would fail to find it very successful? I read your take as “ABFM is gonna retool this shaft any way it has gotta to sell it”.
“To date, this growing body of evidence shows a positive relationship between maintenance of certification and patient outcomes.”
ok, let’s look-
Peterson et al – ‘incorporating MOC into residency training’ Swing and a Miss. That is training, not patient outcomes. It also suggests that you are degrading residency training into teaching to the test… not a proud time.Galliher et al- from???JABFM??? really? you think this is a reasonable way to justify your product? Although I gotta admit, it does prove that Docs run though your modules learn how to toggle the right box on electronic records. As for ACTUAL patient out comes “…the association between activity undertaken and specific improvements is difficult to demonstrate.” Swing and a Miss
Lipner et al, CONCLUSIONS Certification boards should continuously try to improve their programs in response to feedback from stakeholders, changes in the way physicians practice, as well as the growth in the fields of measurement and technology. Keeping pace with these changes in a responsible and evidence-based way is important. Did you mean to say Patient Outcomes? Swing and a Miss. I’m starting to feel that this is just a bunch of fluff.
O’Neill et al, “…perform better on the ABFM certification…” You are not listening. Swing and a Miss.
Puffer et al, twice, only discus what sad little lemmings Family Docs are. Swing and a Miss. (twice)
O’Neill in press and Sumner et al are not available for review. You do not get the benefit of this huge doubt here.
Xierali et al is another lemmings article.
Yup, not a word about PATIENT OUTCOMES. This has all of the feel of a sham. I am assuming that you put your best evidence up front. Up front, I find no evidence.
In the future, I definitely see the ABFM working to maintain its grip on the very lucrative CME market.
I do not suspect that the public will be entirely tickled to hear that you, or any other entity is working towards a constant online monitoring of their most private medical information. The public has seen super security US government systems and hugely wealthy industry systems hacked with no arrests. There will be no confidence in this intrusion by self assured, self serving academics peddling their wares.
I am still not buying what you have to sell. You, sir Emperor, are nude.
Sincerely,
David D. Fitzpatrick MD
Nice job, Dave!!
Well Done Dave! Again, we are hostages by the very organisations that are are supposedly created to protect us. The AAFP,ABFM,AMA,AOA etc. They cow tow to regulatory and governmental agencies and sell us out. We are paying their dues fees? There leverage is loss of certification which is professional suicide. Insanity.
All of this discussion shows that the ABFM is a sham. I would also like to see published the total dollars paid to each of the board members.
Dr. James Puffer, the President of the ABFM, received salary and retirement compensation of $742,000 in 2011. If you want someone willing to stab their fellow physicians in the back, you have to pay well.
I wrote to the ABFM to inquire about this figure. My inquiry was passed on to Dr. Puffer, who responded thusly:
Dr. Conrad,
Our Support Center has forwarded your email to me for review and a response. I am happy to do so.
As a not for profit entity recognized by the IRS under code section 501(C)(6), our tax returns are available to the public for review. These tax returns, like those of all other not for profit entities, are posted on the GuideStar web site (www.guidestar.com). GuideStar obtains the tax returns from the IRS as they are filed. You may review our returns by registering for free with Guide Star. The returns for the most recent three years are available for viewing. Included in Form 990 in Part VII is a detail of the compensation of officers, directors, trustees, and the highest compensated employees.
If you review the Form 990 for 2012 (submitted in November of last year), the most recent available, you will see in Part VII that my reportable compensation for tax year 2012 was $608,796 and estimated other compensation was $133,793 for a total of $742,589. This total includes salary, benefits and retirement contributions. My compensation package was established by our Board of Directors using data from a salary survey of comparable positions within the industry – a corporate best practice. If you review the compensation paid to other executives of ABMS member boards or major medical organizations (such as the AAFP or ACP), I believe that you will find the salary consistent with that paid to other executives in positions similar to mine.
Sincerely,
James C. Puffer, M.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer
American Board of Family Medicine
There you have it!
Quislings don’t come cheap these days.
So, it is five times more lucrative to sell out and screw your fellow doctors than it is to actually treat patients.
I guess that’s what they call “Relative Value.”
wow. dave, you are my new hero! dave should be president of the AAFP. i have to say i like the new list of cronies, er…Board of directors for the ABFM. we now know the names of another group of doc’s who have sold their souls and now have their bodies inhabited by demons. good information to know…
Americans tend to trust the marketplace – not the marketplace of Ricardo and Adam Smith, which we fear. We prefer set-price, brand-name homogenous mediocrity. As we have with hotels in fifty years, and restaurants in thirty, we no longer trust our own tastes and ability to choose, which are made uniformly boring by indoctrination. In business, we see any achievement above a passable level of competence to be wasted effort.
And now, medicine.
The populace seems to be uncomfortable, in aggregate, with the burden and vagaries of actually choosing a physician-person themselves, and be troubled by their own considerations of competence and likeability. Rather, we prefer a branded, commoditized physician-product; as faceless as the store’s trademark is known.
We are only a few years from Sears Physicians, Target Physicians, Wal-Docs. As to their names and incidentals, it is no matter; they come and go like the annual march of holidays. The doctors are faceless, impersonal, ignored, uninteresting.
And the care continues to become faceless, impersonal, ignorant and uninterested. You are a number. We are only a few years from the implanted RFID Medicare Chip, such as they have now in pets, so you need only to be scanned to be found in the Database. What your stomach pain is – who really knows?
As you have noticed, Dave, the Boards no longer act in service of the provider; it is the provider, like the hungry orphan, who must beg to become acknowledged by the squires of the ABMS.
If you pay, you will be granted a lease – do not consider it anything more – but a lease of the Board’s trademark for a short period of time. You dare not say that you are a family practitioner – that term will be copyrighted by the ABFM soon, and you will have to go with a shrug and palms-up, when someone asks your specialty.
House servants always step lively, because if they don’t, they could become field servants. Step lively, now, Dave, step lively!
“A lease of the Board’s trademark” – excellent description.
“Patient Outcomes” has become a new buzz word in the insurance business, acedemia buisness, CME business etc. etc business. I have outstanding outcomes with my cooperative self starter patients who manage their diabetes hypertension hyperlipidemia perfectly. I have very poor outcomes with 2 pack aday smokers, morbidly obese couch potatoes, who no show for regular appointments but need to be seen urgently for leg cellulitis , chest pain MI symptoms, …. you know the drill. I don’t seem to be able to make people do what they don’t want to do. …. just like the teachers and “No Child Left Behind” .
Now, how is MC-FP going to make my 450 lb patient suddenly see the light after 30 + years of being her doctor. I know that if I select my patients carefully I will have the best “Patient Outcomes”. (Concierge Practice?) Should we all do this? Ignor the others in need?
THE ABFM AND OTHER BOARDS NEED THE MONEY TO COVER THEIR COSTS AND NOW THEY FOUND A WAY TO DO SO…. I would rather they compete in the marketplace to offer the best educational programs in the country.
Thank you, Frank. I used to classify my diabetics as “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly,” not with disdain but realizing that the ones who came in with a 5.9 A1C and talked about the grams of carbohydrates they ate per meal and the glycemic index of their foods required a totally different approach than the barely-controlled schizophrenic, A1C unknown, who thought we were putting poison into her with finger-sticks.
Wouldn’t treating patients as individuals cause outcomes to be individualized? Or will the Borg punish me for wrongful thinking?
The only thing I disagree with is the suggestion that you have that the ABFM has such things deserving of the term “costs.” Stone-broke parents who cannot pay for vaccinations and you underwrite them out of charity – that’s a “cost.” Updating the Mercedes every year – that’s not a “cost.”
Boss Jaen’s logic is circular: you need this because it’s required, therefore we are doing you a favor by providing it and requiring it.
Like everything else in medicine any longer, this corruption is based on force. I have to do this crap in order to make a living. I don’t want it, it is in MY judgement absolutely no value to me, and the worthless ABFM will force me to do it anyway. This arrogant ass speaks of 15 hours and several hundred dollars glibly, oblivious that it’s MY money and MY time, as though he has a legitimate claim on it. I hope with all my heart after the next test cycle I can leave these losers in the rear view mirror and wash my hands of all organized family practice forever.
I got that scrap of toilet paper in the mail, too, and the only reason why I haven’t used it as appropriate yet is that I felt I should read it to see if it contained any new threats to my certification or my license.
One hates to appear irrationally hostile, but I think these people at the ABFM are parasites, sucking the blood of practicing physicians while contributing nothing to their practice nor their patients’ health.
As noted in an earlier post, their business model is no different than a Mafia protection racket, and they constantly dream up new mandatory “services” to provide for a “small fee.”
Thank you for posting it, and thank you , Dr Fitzpatrick, for your excellent and well researched response. Please let us know if you get a reply from these lizards.
People like Dr. Jaén (do we use the term “Dr.” for people who really don’t see patients?) will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.