Today, an article from the leadership of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) defending the value of Maintenance of Certification (MOC). The article was not published there for physicians. It was published with its false claims and reassuring tones for the insurance, hospital, and physician data-mining industries. Drs Boswell, Johnson and Jalin are senior officers on the Board of Directors at the ABIM and receive an honoraria for their service as salespeople for the health care data collection complex. That’s because MOC is all about the data on physicians the AMA, ABMS, and ABIM sell. And sell they do: releasing this puff piece on MOC to the press before publication to assure the widest possible distribution of the talking points from the AMA, ABIM and the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS). This distribution to the press helps improve the lucrative data sales at the for-profit subsidiary of ABMS, ABMS Solutions LLC in Atlanta, GA and on the AMA’s physician masterfile.
Just like the Presidents of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, these members of the ABIM leadership appear satisfied with the caliber of their so-called “growing body of evidence” published by Washington DC think tanks and veterinarians in their peer-reviewed cohort studies. They note the “adjusted statistical analyses” of these studies that has shown the “patients who are cared for by physicians who demonstrate more medical knowledge through certification and MOC have better prognosis for a host of better outcomes” while knowing full well that these data are cherry-picked to improve data sales. While they might not be aware, these authors are bought and paid for my industry. They get advanced at their workplaces for promulgating lies about the value of MOC and its value to things like diversity, equity and inclusion when they are likely achieving exactly the opposite by removing fed up front-line physicians from the workforce for the very patients they claim to support. Experienced physicians know better than to put up with forced compliance of unproven MOC mandates and ridiculous forced payments required by these unelected and carefully chosen corporate drones paid to promote AMA and AMBS data sales.
If you believe these “studies” are credible, drill down and look at who writes them – most are ABIM of ABMS member board authors or industry sycophants. Here’s a detailed critical review of a good portion of the ABIM’s “body of evidence.” And regarding the ABIM’s “platinum” financial rating of non-profits on Candid (formerly Guidestar)? You can get the same rating for your non-profit if you pay them a fee, too.
That’s why working physicians can’t even determine how many MOC points they have or the amount they owe to the ABIM or other ABMS member board until they complete the data entry on their practice characteristics before they gain access to the various ABMS member board “physician portals” to pay their fees or sign up for MOC exercises. It’s all about the data, remember? That’s why the AMA and ABMS member boards won’t play nice with competing boards like the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons (NBPAS.org) who don’t demand we enter this data.
It is interesting that the authors fail to mention the class action antitrust lawsuit filed against their organization, as if it never happened. Perhaps they feel smug that they will prevail in the courts. For now, that may be true. But a new generation of physicians and new antitrust lawsuits are taking up the charge against MOC, and its just a matter of time before MOC is truly self-regulated by a band of honest physicians who want what’s best for their patients and not for those who stand to profit from the rigged medical system for their own largess. If this doesn’t happen, its just a matter of time before patients rise up because they’ll find it difficult to have a US-trained physician available to provide their care any more.
These back-stabbing physicians have no integrity!