American Board of Radiology eyeing fee reductions in 2022, changing name of MOC program
The American Board of Radiology is changing the name of its controversial maintenance of certification program and eyeing 2022 fee reductions, the group revealed in a slew of recent updates.
Radiologists have cited high user fees as one of their chief complaints with the Tucson, Arizona-based doc-certification group. On average, physicians pay nearly $15,000 over the course of their career on certification, one of the highest totals among specialties, a recent report found.
Amid the pandemic, ABR has switched to online exam administration, rather than using in-person testing centers. Radiologists hoped this transition would help to reduce fees, but the board announced earlier this year that “persistent barriers” were preventing it from doing so. However, in a post shared April 7 leaders said the ABR is now exploring reductions next year, regardless of its inability to predict how the pandemic will play out.
“Despite this level of uncertainty, the board asked staff for detailed accounting and financial modelling to allow for analysis of potential targeted fee reductions that attempt, as much as possible, to match fees with costs,” Executive Director Brent Wagner, MD, MBA, wrote in April’s issue of the Beam publication. “Fees have not increased over the past five years, but the board holds itself and ABR staff accountable for maintaining fees at the lowest possible level while producing a rigorous and reliable certification process,” he added.
Meanwhile, ABR is changing the name of its maintenance of certification program. Around since 2007, the Continuing Certification program, as it’s now called, has evolved in recent years, President Vincent Mathews, MD, noted in a separate story. Changes include expanding self-assessment activities in 2012, creating a dedicated customer service team in 2015, a new website in 2017
“In recognition of the many significant program enhancements and our overall goal for continuous improvement, we are beginning the transition from the original program name, MOC, to the new name, Continuing Certification,” he wrote April 7. “Our goal is to offer a Continuing Certification program that is robust and credible to patients and the public and not overly burdensome to those participating.”
MOC has been a source of controversy in recent years, prompting a lawsuit from one Tennessee physician that a judge tossed in January. The American College of Radiology and its members last year took the ABR to task for its alleged lack of transparency and “power imbalance” over the field.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.