The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM)’s changes to its widely detested maintenance of certification (MOC) program in 2014 will increase time commitments by about 20 percent and expenses (including the cost of their time) more than 15 percent for physicians who need to complete it, says a study led by Dhruv S. Kazi, M.D., MSc, of the University of California at San Francisco.
As MedPage Today noted: “In recent years the cost of the MOC program has been a point of contention among physicians, many of whom have called for evidence that the program helps physicians provide better quality care, and for financial transparency from the ABIM.
The publication said that “In February 2015, the ABIM responded to physician complaints with five modifications to the 2014 update, promising more flexibility, locking in the 2014 fees till 2017, and suspending the patient voice, patient safety, and practice assessment portions of the program for 2 years. The current study did not take these changes into account, but they do not appear likely to affect the results markedly.”
