Banning the MOC
This just happened in Oklahoma:
“Nothing in the Oklahoma Allopathic Medical and Surgical Licensure and Supervision Act shall be construed as to require a physician to secure a Maintenance of Certification (MOC) as a condition of licensure, reimbursement, employment or admitting privileges at a hospital in this state. For the purposes of this subsection, “Maintenance of Certification (MOC)” shall mean a continuing education program measuring core competencies in the practice of medicine and surgery and approved by a nationally recognized accrediting organization.”In other words, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed SB 1148 into law and killed the ABMS MOC. This article, by Med Edison MD, makes the some great points:
- The law legislates exactly what ABMS says about board certification: that it is voluntary.
- ABMS has long claimed “board certification is a voluntary process, and one that is very different from medical licensure.”
- But for those of us on the ground, it’s very clear that it is NOT voluntary. We can quickly lose our jobs, our hospital privilidges, and our insurance participation if we choose not to participate in any portion of MOC.
This is great news. This may end up killing the corrupt ABMS. Adding to Oklahoma is bills in Missouri, Michigan, and Kentucky. If you are a doc, support this fight and let’s get something done in our favor.
I was just thinking, isn’t it interesting that the AAFP and the AMA, who are always looking for money, isn’t trying to help us here? Hmmmm.
My experience with my last recert exam in a large Midwest city was similar to Mamadoc. The exam room was sterile- only could bring in your picture ID. Even had to leave your wallet & car keys in their flimsy ‘lockers’ in the open unmonitored hallway. (Lucky nothing was stolen). The exam room was test-company generic. A front table and rows of computer terminal desks. Examinees were NOT just docs. During the several hours I was trying to concentrate on my medical specialty exam, barbers & beauticians filtered in and out of the same room taking their 30min test for their licensures!!! For the four-figure $$$$ fee they should be able to afford a venue with less distractions. And very few (10%?) of the exam questions had anything to do with common medical issues in my specialty and real clinical practice. Lots of esoteric BS, like questions about lab tests or drugs which were not even on the market (e.g. still in application phase, withdrawn from the market, etc.).
Let’s cut to the chase. Since there is no OBJECTIVE evidence after all these years that MOC improves patient outcomes, there can be only one reason that ABMS keeps requiring it…. MONEY. Since most docs would lose their privileges if their Boards lapsed, MOC is NOT voluntary at all. It is functional EXTORTION. Vastly overpaid ABMS bureaucrats are shaking down doc’s for $$$ by holding their careers hostage. Three cheers for OK for at least trying to reign in this lunacy.
Good for Oklahoma. Just did 5th recert in 30+ years. it used to be that these exams were in hotel ballrooms proctored by actual physicians on the board. You saw everybody you hadn’t seen since the last exam and it was if not entirely pleasant it was at least bearable. Now they subcontract the whole thing out (guess the board doctors are too busy collecting their increasingly large salaries to do any actual work) to outfits that probably got fired from the prison system for bad customer service. It used to be this lot was content with stealing out money only every 6 or 7 years, now they suck money all the years between exams. Hope to goodness I passed because I don’t want to do it again. At 62 I’d like to work a while longer but the price might be a little too high. Higher standards better care my left foot.
This highlights the absurdity of physicians with 20 and 30 years of experience wasting precious time doing computer work for MOC and wasting a whole day taking multiple choice tests like a high school student.