MOC Study Committee’s Official Statement on “Vision Initiative” Draft Report

In response to the Medical Association and other state and national medical and physician specialty societies’ grievances with ABMS, its member Boards, and specifically the MOC program, ABMS sought input from a broad range of stakeholders in an effort to envision and craft a board certification system that is responsive and meaningful to physicians. This effort has included professional medical organizations, national specialty and state medical societies, hospitals and health systems and others. The group released its vision for the future of board certification – dubbed the “Vision Initiative.”

The Medical Association has been active on the MOC issue, through both its MOC Study Committee and advocacy at the national and even state levels. Below is the official statement on the “Vision Initiative” from MOC Study Committee Chairman Dr. Greg Ayers:

“The Medical Association of the State of Alabama’s MOC Study Committee supports a voluntary process for board certification in medical specialties and a departure from the sometimes punitive approach toward certification taken by some American Board of Medical Specialties’ specialty boards. This process must maintain high standards for professionalism and encourage lifelong learning that is clinically relevant to patient care within physicians’ individual practices. The MOC Study Committee believes the ABMS various specialty boards should continue efforts to improve upon and ensure inexpensive, accessible options for increasing the breadth and scope of physicians’ skills and knowledge so they may best serve their patients; however, those efforts should never, of themselves, hinder, obstruct nor supersede the actual provision of care. The ABMS Boards should collaborate to pursue implementation of reciprocal, longitudinal pathways for multi-specialty diplomates. The continuing physician specialty certification process of the future should not include the current high-stakes examination and burdensome, duplicative components of Maintenance of Certification. Given physicians’ support for self-regulation, the MOC Study Committee calls upon the ABMS Boards to fulfill its duty to administer specialty board certification in a manner that assists physicians in continuing to improve the quality of care patients receive.”

Greg Ayers, M.D., Chairman, MOC Study Committee

For more information, see also:

MOC UPDATE: Working to Solve Problems with Certification