Dear South Miami and Baptist Hospitals medical staff member,

 

There is controversy surrounding the requirements for MOC. Many physicians believe current MOC requirements are onerous, time-wasting, not meaningful and unnecessarily expensive. In response to this discontent, an alternative board, the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons (NBPAS) was formed. NBPAS provides an alternative pathway for the maintenance phase of certification. I am writing to request South Miami and Baptist Hospitals credentialing requirements accept NBPAS certification as an alternative to ABMS certification. 

Importantly, many published studies have found no association between MOC or recertification and improved patient outcomes 

To date >6,000 physicians have been certified by NBPAS and over 60 hospitals have accepted NBPAS as an alternative to ABMS or AOA certification. Many hospitals, including University Hospitals, are considering accepting NBPAS, but the process has been slow. Emory and Baylor have implemented NBPAS already.

There are challenges to overcome, including recognition of NBPAS certification by third party payers and restrictive advertising laws in California and Texas, but NBPAS is working to overcome these challenges. For NBPAS to succeed it must continue to grow the number of NBPAS diplomats and the number of hospitals that accept NBPAS as an alternative to ABMS or AOA. It is important for our Hospitals credentials committee, medical executive committee and board of trustees to hear the voice of the medical staff on this issue. Please make your voice heard by signing the petition below. I created this petition for supporting changes to the hospital bylaws, and we need as many physicians signatures as possible to make our voice heard.  We need to document the number of medical staff who sign in favor of the petition.

Many ABMS and AOA member boards have created Maintenance of Certification (MOC) requirements which require significant time and expense and have no proven value. For many physicians on our medical staff, participation in MOC activities is required to maintain board certification and board certification is required to maintain hospital privileges.  A new certifying organization, the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons (NBPAS.org.) was created to provide an alternative to ABMS and AOA certification. NBPAS certification requires initial certification by an ABMS or AOA member board, but uses ACCME accredited CME instead of MOC as the primary measure of continuing certification. Accredited CME is a meaningful educational activity that can be tailored to an individual physician’s practice.

Criteria for NBPAS certification:

– Previous certification by an ABMS or AOA member board

– Valid license to practice medicine

– At least 50 hours of ACCME accredited CME within the past 24 months

– For selected specialties, active hospital privileges in that specialty

– Clinical privileges in certified specialty have not been permanently revoked

Whereas,

1) There is no scientific data linking ABMS or AOA MOC activities with improved patient care.

2) Via either personal experience with MOC or the experience of our colleagues we believe ABMS and AOA MOC activities are unreasonably complex, have questionable value, and detract from more worthwhile pursuits, including patient care and other educational activities.

3) NBPAS is an alternative certifying organization that requires initial certification by an ABMS or AOA member board but uses accredited CME as the primary measure of continued certification.

4) Certification by the NBPAS is a more meaningful alternative to ABMS or AOA.

Therefore,

The undersigned call on the credentials committees, medical executive committee and Board of Trustees of the South Miami and Baptist Hospitals to accept NBPAS certification as an alternative to ABMS and AOA member board certification for hospital privileges.

If you support this petition, please send it to your colleagues on the hospital medical staff office for distribution.

ONLY ONE SIGNATURE PER PHYSICIAN

PS: The video link below shows the comments from Dr. Paul Teirstein (president of NBPAS) when he debated on the topic of the Maintenance Of Certification with Lois Margaret Nora, MD, JD, MBA (President and CEO of the ABMS) and Richard Baron, MD (President and CEO of ABIM)

Sincerely,

Elie R. Haddad, MD