More NONSENSE from the ABIM and Choosing Wisely

The Necessity of Stewardship

By ABIM on May 22, 2014 | 0 Comments

2

This post was written by Dr. John Benson, Jr., President Emeritus, American Board of Internal Medicine and ABIM Foundation,

And of course the ABIM is THE steward and collects the money from MOC!!
My reply:
It is time for everyone to realize that The federal Government, patients, pharmacy and the ancillary industries including hospital administrations that follow the government mandates are wasting the largest amount of money-not doctors. The ABMS/ABIM is expanding the $400 million empire, forcing EVERY physician to consume their unnecessary products, duplicating the jobs of multiple oversight agencies that are actually mandated to have the objective to regulate medicine. As Board Certification itself has never been demonstrated to do anything to improve care, MOC is just another extention of that same failed program of “advertisement” of unproven competency. This competency does NOT matter in today’s world where Hospital administrators, government employees, patient’s “satisfaction scales” and other idiotic mechanisms including”certification extortion scams” are allowing non-physicians to practice medicine even outside the scope of state medical boards.
The Choosing Wisely program espouses discarding “wasteful testing” while the parent ABIM is forcing the most wasteful testing: MOC- which causes every one to be tested and we know that less than 0.005% of all physicians were ever challenged as incompetent-but this means “as competent as a NP or Midwife! EMR as ONE example has added a whole new industry with 5 year renewal cycles to buy replacement computers and software onto the back of healthcare-this does NOT save money! It does help IBM and Microsoft though!

Lance Talmage MD found guilty of ethics violation on SMBO

SEE today's Columbus Dispatch article entitled: 

Medical-board ethics cases see ex-member cited, ex-director cleared

I have written this following letter to Senator Patton,  who was instrumental in this investigation.  I would hope the OSMA and other individual physicians might contact his office and thank him similarly and to prevent reappointment of Dr Talmage,  who may still try to be reappointed to the SMBO and to the further detriment of Ohio Physicians and medicine via FSMB membership and leadership.

Dear Senator  Patton: I wanted to personally thank you for your significant work in bringing Dr Talmage's conflicts to bear. He is currently not listed as a State Medical Board Member, but I cannot be sure that he is not "in the running" to reappear after 15 years on the State medical Board. As he to date refuses to admit to his wrongdoing (see article from Columbus Dispatch at: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/05/21/former-medical-board-director-cleared.html
)Former medical board director cleared in ethics case

			Former medical board director cleared in ethics case A state medical board member was nicked but the ousted former executive director cleared today in a joint conflicts-of-interest investigation by...
			View on www.dispatch.com	Preview by Yahoo

 Text:"Dr. Lance Talmage, whose term expired on Saturday, improperly received payment from the medical board while at the same time getting a stipend from the Federation of State Medical Boards for serving as that group's board chairman, which paid $64,000 a year. The Ethics Commission reached a settlement with Talmage, a Toledo gynecologist, who reimbursed the state board $4,894.56 in March for per diems.

The commission found the doctor violated a state law saying, "No public official or employee shall solicit or accept anything of value that is of such character as to manifest a substantial and improper influence upon the public official or employee with respect to that person's duties." Talmage acknowledged the facts but refused to admit wrongdoing."

I would hope you might contact the Governor and recommend he NOT be reappointed under any circumstances.  Again MANY thanks to you for your significant work in this matter and in the interests of the population of OHIO!

Poll results indicate WIDESPREAD dissatisfaction with MOC

Check out this poll results on Sermo! with over 1,000 polled to date! https://app.sermo.com/md

Poll of the Week

It's generally agreed that physicians need to keep current with new information and diagnostic and treatment guidelines, but the MOC process has been widely criticized. What, specifically, makes the MOC process so onerous?

64%	Too expensive (1174/1843)
55%	Medical boards should focus on content, not revenue (1017/1843)
53%	Too time-consuming (985/1843)
49%	Shouldn't be tied with maintaining board certification (895/1843)
48%	Process too complicated(888/1843)
42%	Not relevant to my daily practice(778/1843)
35%	I do my own self-study (638/1843)
4%	Nothing, the MOC process works well (70/1843)

Data on the costs of medicine-it is NOT doctor pay!

Please see this article which clearly describes the costs of healthcare-it is the CEOs of insurance and hospital industries!:

Doctor’s Salaries Are Not the Big Cost

See: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/sunday-review/doctors-salaries-are-not-the-big-cost.html?_r=1 

By ELISABETH ROSENTHALMAY 17, 2014

Who Makes What

National average annual salaries in 2013 for health-related job titles. Figures do not include bonuses or incentives, which can be far greater than base salaries.

C.E.O. of health/disability insurance firms

$583,700

Hospital C.E.O.

Avg. base salary for all insurance industry C.E.O.s: $544,100

$386,000

Hospital administrator

$236,800

General physician

$185,000

Family-pra

Dayton signs bill giving some nurses more authority to practice medicine independently

 

SEE: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/05/13/dayton-signs-bill-giving-nurses-more-authority?from=health 
Lorna Benson · St. Paul, Minn. · May 13, 2014

Some highly-trained nurses in Minnesota will no longer be required to have a physician supervise their work.

Gov. Mark Dayton has signed a bill that gives advanced practice registered nurses the authority to practice independently.

The licensing change, which takes effect Jan. 1, applies to nurse-midwives, nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists and registered nurse anesthetists. That makes Minnesota the ninth state to grant full practice and prescribing autonomy to all four categories of advanced practice nurses.

The practice of medicine has been given to the nurses there-no oversight from the state medical board OR the great ABMS either. More reasons to take MOC and shove it! YOu don't NEED any education just permission from the state and THAT is now a nursing license!

Maintenance of Marriage (MOM)-now a little lighter MOC

Posted by grobodoc  on May 13, 2014 - 03:53PM EDT
Author Specialties: Internal Medicine and Geriatric Medicine

https://app.sermo.com/posts/posts/218068

Thinking about starting a new business. With the institution of marriage failing, it is time for some group to take action to save couples from themselves. We know that when a marriage certificate is issued, it is valid for life, with no requirement for recertification or continuing marriage education. Sadly, it is generally accepted that roughly half of marriage certificates fail. The reasons for this are multiple, but couples all too often neglect to remain current with the successful marriage literature and procedures. My company will be named The American Board of Marriage Sustainability (ABMS). Dues will, of course, be required. In addition, annual testing (for an additional fee) and proof of Continuing Marriage Education (CME) will be required of all participants so that they can be labelled as having completed the reuirements for maintenance of marriage (MOM). If reqirements are not met, the marriage certificate would not be revoked, but rather be reclassified as having not met MOM. Qualifying credits could be obtained by attending expensive, boring, and non-informative courses at near-exotic locations, all at additional financial gain for ABMS. As CEO of this righteous and moral company, I would be entitled to an exhorbitant salary but would keep administrative expenses to less than 20%. The remainder could be distributed to advisory board Sermo members with full transparency of the excessive ill-gotten gains assured. By way of full disclosure, I should mention that I am currently unmarried. Revolt via hashtag is not anticipated, for few would be willing to be # anti-MOM. Anyone care to join me in this venture?

Backlash grows against MOC process from: Internal Medicine News

http://www.internalmedicinenews.com/specialty-focus/practice-trends/single-article-page/backlash-grows-against-moc-process/376e81d9cf7ff3e8126c8ec627a9beaa.html

Backlash grows against MOC process

By: ALICIA AULT, Internal Medicine News Digital Network

Resistance against the American Board of Internal Medicine’s maintenance of certification process is growing, with an online petition to overturn the board’s most recent changes having collected more than 13,000 signatures at press time.

Physicians who commented on the petition did not agree.

Dr. Jesse Naghi, a third-year fellow at the University of California, San Diego, Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center, wrote, "Asking for more money on top of our already high recertification fees seems rather greedy."

"This is an arm-twisting and money-making scam by our own board," said Dr. Garrett Sanford, of Little Rock, Ark.

"We do recognize that there is a cost – for the large majority of our physicians, the entire program costs from $200 to $400 per year," said Dr. Baron, in his statement. "Our fee structure covers the costs of developing and administering the secure, computer-based exams at test centers nationwide, as well as the ongoing development and release of all ABIM self-assessment products," he said, adding, "I encourage the petition signers to visit ABIM’s revenue and expenses [Web page] for more information."

When We Reward Regulators More Than Doctors-That darn MOC again!

Here is a chart Dr. Wes made of the top 10 board members' annual income compared to the same subspecialty physician salaries in 2011 as reported by Medscape, See: http://drwes.blogspot.com/

and concludes:
Clearly, the US physician credentialing system as it exists now overwhelmingly rewards people with regulatory oversight rather than those who provide patient care.  Was this the intent?  More specifically, was the intent of the ABIM's "medical professionalism" manuscript to line the pockets of the ABMS member boards in lieu of social justice?  What kind of justice is this?

Are you a rebel against MOC-see;

http://rebel.md/ 

ABIM to Physicians: Screw You.

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Meg Edison MD • 1 Comment

Over 12,000 physicians signed a petition asking the ABIM to suspend Maintenance of Certification, otherwise known as a money-making scheme to change board certification into an expensive, time consuming, continuous process....................