CDL Exams by Frank Moskos MD

cdl
Have you been “certified” for the new CDL garbage? if so have you seen the actual federal rule? Here it is:
I particularly like the following:

The opportunity cost of time for an ME to attend certification training and testing was estimated at $83 per hour, and the time commitment for certification was  estimated at 11.5 hours, for a total cost of approximately $954. If an ME took on these costs, approximately 148 examinations at most would be needed to pay back the investment of time required to become certified.

and:

The American Chiropractic Association and a comment signed by 147 chiropractors stated that the National Registry will both improve highway safety and reduce the number of erroneous driver disqualifications. They agreed that the ME certification program will raise the quality and conformity of the CMV driver physical examination. California and Iowa expressed similar opinions in stating that the training protocol will ensure that MEs are knowledgeable and capable of performing these examinations.
I for one will not be getting certified. It’s a bummer for my patients but it is good to know that all you have to do is 140 exams to pay off the fee for the privilege.  This is on top of the”refresher” courses and new certification exams every ten years and reporting all the exams monthly and submitting a report even if there are none and doing frequent audits and such. I think that they have failed to account for 52% overhead (at least) that most of us pay to keep the lights on, likely making that a bit more more expensive than they have projected. Much like with EMR’s, this will likely drive cost up for no real benefit (as with all government regulations there is no evidence to back up any of this). Just one more bureaucratic mess foisted off on us for the goal of fostering more paperwork and more bureaucracy.
But look on the bright side of this: Point #2, 147 chiropractors trump MD’s! I love it. Perhaps chiropractic will solve all of medicine’s issues, seeing as they are so big on finding “erroneous diver qualifications” perhaps they can stamp out the rest of our problems with some adjustments and herbs…