As many of us head back to work to start a New Year, let’s not forget that physicians have until January 15, 2019 to “comment” on the ABMS Vision Commission’s (un-editable) Draft Report.
While Paul Teirstein, MD and his colleagues at the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons (NBPAS) did a nice job dissecting many of the problems with the Vision Commission’s report and made it easy to “comment” to the Commission’s Draft Report using SurveyMonkey, I would like to add a few important observations about the Vision Commission’s report (and the response by NBPAS) that are not mentioned and remain stumbling blocks for me.
First of all, should physicians be bound by an adhesion contract (seen here) with Board Certification and MOC (or whatever “continuous certification” becomes called) that can change on the whim of the ABMS and their member boards “from time to time?” This gives unilateral control to ABMS and prevents appropriate checks and balances. How is this helpful to anyone except the ABMS member boards and their collaborating corporate entities – all of whom already enjoy a substantial position of power and monetary influence. Remember the history of MOC reviewed in the antitrust complaint (starting on Page 5) filed five days before the Vision Commission’s “Draft Report” appeared.
Also, those corporate entities that collude with MOC are not mentioned and are extensive. A partial list includes ABMS Solutions, LLC, hospitals and the ABMS Multispecialty Portfolio Program, publishers like the Massachusetts Medical Society and Wolters Kluwer, Pearson LLC, CECity, Premier, Inc, PriceWaterhouseCooper, and subspecialty societies like the ACC and ACP – all who stand to benefit financially from MOC. Remember, a significant portion of the ABMS Vision Commission are not practicing clinical physicians and are deeply conflicted with corporate entities.
And let’s not forget that the Commission’s report leaves the harms already experienced by physicians and their families unmentioned (for obvious reasons) – again, see the recent antitrust Complaint filed. MOC was always about money and power for the ABMS and their member boards. The ABMS fully intends for MOC (soon to be rebranded as CertLink®) to shift from a desktop platform at a PearsonVue testing center to a mobile platform in the palm of our hands as “MOC pilots” become permanent in 2019! This translates to more distractive screen time for physicians away from patients and a lucrative life-long money stream to ABMS and their collaborators.
I would encourage physician to consider copying the content of this blog post and morph it into your own “comment” to the Vision Commission if you feel it would be worthwhile.
Also, consider donating to Practicing Physicians of America’s legal fund. I believe you’ll get more for your hard-earned money that protects your interests that way.
-Wes
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