Petition to End Maintenance of Certification Rallies More Than 10K Signers
MedPage Today (08/04/23) Henderson, Jennifer
More than 10,000 physicians have signed a Change.org petition to discontinue the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) administered maintenance of certification (MOC) requirements. The petition's authors wrote they "firmly believe that the MOC program has become burdensome, costly and lacks evidence to support its effectiveness in improving patient care or physician competence." Petition organizer Aaron Goodman, MD, at the University of California San Diego, said he feels clinicians are too frequently burdened by bureaucratic requirements, while the MOC program "is not protecting patients from anything." He noted he opposes the MOC mandates but not initial certification or continuing medical education (CME). The petition's authors proposed alternatives including "voluntary, accessible and evidence-based" CME programs; peer assessment and feedback; and "specialty-specific pathways that allow physicians to tailor their professional development to their individual needs and areas of expertise." They stressed that although the MOC program originally intended to support standards of medical practice and lifelong learning, it has "evolved into a complex and time-consuming process that poses significant challenges to practicing physicians." The authors also called out a lack of empirical evidence demonstrating that MOC compliance improves physician performance or patient outcomes. Without directly responding to the petition, ABIM states on its website that "there is compelling evidence showing that MOC improves value of care without sacrificing quality and that board certified physicians command higher salaries." Goodman expressed his intent to continue highlighting the petition's concerns by reaching out to entities like hospital credentialing panels and professional societies. "The only way we're going to fix some of the issues physicians face is to take back some of our ownership," he said.
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