Board self-assessment modules under fire from family physicians

Family medicine leaders want to suspend part of the process for maintenance of certification until technical and content issues are resolved.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. Dec. 13, 2004.

Some family physicians say the American Board of Family Practice's maintenance-of-certification program needs revamping to avoid confusion and to make the process less onerous for doctors.

Physicians expressed their frustrations during the congress of delegates of the American Academy of Family Physicians and asked the AAFP to take action. AAFP delegates want the academy and ABFP to develop a plan to educate family physicians about the process, and they want the AAFP to urge the board to suspend required self-assessment modules.

"We're not objecting to the concept. It's what was developed that is unreasonable," said Richard Feldman, MD, an Indianapolis family physician and immediate past president of the Indiana Academy of Family Physicians.

AAFP chapters in Indiana, Kansas, Michigan and Ohio proposed resolutions on maintenance of certification during the academy's meeting in Orlando, Fla., in October. The resolution that passed on developing an education plan also calls for telling family physicians why MOC is the new standard of certification and what benefits can be derived from the process.

Delegates passed a second resolution calling for the AAFP to urge the board to suspend the self-assessment modules as a required part of MOC for family physicians until technical and clinical content problems are adequately resolved. Delegates also recommended that the board develop an alternative way for doctors with unreliable access to the Internet to complete modules. The resolutions were addressed to the American Board of Family Medicine because the ABFP is adopting that name as of Jan. 1, 2005.