Can MOC Be Salvaged or is it Forever Hopeless?

For many physicians, the three dirtiest letters in medicine are MOC.

The maintenance of certification (MOC) requirements have drawn the ire of many physicians, perhaps more so than Meaningful Use, ICD-10, or anything else in recent times. In 2014, the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) created additional requirements for doctors to maintain their certification. On top of the requiring doctors to pass an MOC exam every 10 years, ABIM added exams to earn accreditation points in areas related to practice assessment, patient voice, and patient safety.

To say it was an unpopular move would be an understatement. The revolt from doctors was so loud, Richard Baron, a physician and ABIM's president and CEO, suspended the new requirements and wrote a public letter of apology to the internal medicine community. Baron and ABIM's chief medical officer, Richard Battaglia, have since begun to pick up the pieces and try to salvage the program.

Battaglia spoke with Physicians Practice about it in our recent feature article.

Among the changes discussed by Battaglia is ABIM's work with the Accrediting Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to identify CMEs that meet the requirements for MOC. "Therefore, thousands of activities that weren't available for MOC credit can now be transferred to ABIM without additional work on the physician's part," he said to Physicians Practice. Moreover, ABIM is looking to create an alternative to the 10-year recertification requirements by 2018.

Of course, there are likely a number of doctors that will never buy in to MOC, no matter how many changes ABIM makes. The Pennsylvania Medical Society's Scott Shapiro, a clinical cardiologist who was interviewed in the above article, said his organization took a position of no confidence in ABIM in June of this year.

Where do you stand: Can you ever see yourself buying into a revamped MOC or is the program tarnished forever? Let us know in the poll and in the comments section below!