The Monthly Dose: August 2024

Welcome to the second edition of "The Monthly Dose"!

You may have noticed a delay in our “monthly” newsletter. We made a strategic decision to temporarily divert our resources to several time-sensitive projects that required our full attention. The NBPAS team is excited to read you in on a number of these new developments and highlight what’s next.

Let’s dig in!

NBPAS asked the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to provide relief from what it believes is an effort by ABMS and its constituent boards to use their monopoly power to exclude or eliminate competitors from the continuing certification market.

On April 18th, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched a portal for public reporting of anti-competitive practices in healthcare including the example:

“Unnecessary Health Care Provider Recertification or Accreditation Requirements”

THANK YOU to everyone who submitted comments. If you haven’t already, it’s not too late to have your voice heard!

In the words of NBPAS Founder and President, Dr. Paul Teirstein - "We urge every physician who has been harmed by MOC to speak now, speak loudly, and spread the word to every physician you know."

Over 200 NBPAS physicians submitted comments to the Texas Medical Board (TMB) in June as part of efforts to change its “Advertising as Board Certified” Rule.

Background: Texas is one of only a few states that has an “advertising” rule in place (pre-dating the existence of NBPAS), currently prohibiting NBPAS physicians from calling themselves “board certified.” The TMB undergoes a mandatory rule review every four years and the review process is currently underway.

Next Steps: At its meeting on August 16, 2024, the TMB announced that it had updated all of its rules. NBPAS has not yet seen the updates - amendments will be made public (as required by TX law) in an upcoming issue of the Texas Register, published every Friday afternoon. TMB staff noted that publication is a lengthy process - NBPAS expects to get a first look at the new rules by early September. Stay tuned for more in the next few weeks. Anyone interested in following the changes may view the Texas Register using this link: https://www.sos.state.tx.us/texreg/

Background: CMS sometimes includes a board certification requirement for Medical Directorships as conditions of payment and physician fee schedules. The NBPAS team reached out to CMS after learning that NBPAS-certified nephrologists were being prevented from seeing patients at End Stage Renal Dialysis (ESRD) facilities - even in rural and federally-designated Health Professional Shortage Areas underserved areas.

NBPAS’ conversations with CMS were productive and on July 10th, CMS officially updated its guidance related to ESRD Medical Directors.

New guidance includes this key point:

Once an individual is board certified, they maintain their certification by demonstrating compliance through a Maintenance of Certification (MoC) program, or a comparable pathway for continuous certification. This board overseeing the MoC may or may not be the same as the board that issued the initial certification.

Next Steps: The NBPAS team continues to meet with CMS to remove unintentional barriers in other specialty areas. We will keep you updated when we have news to share.

Champions of Change

Thank you to all NBPAS physicians who go above and beyond to champion life-long learning while advocating for competition and choice in continuing certification.

Our August Champion: Heidi Jenney, D.O., FACOEP!

Notes from the Office

• NBPAS Executive Director, Katie Collins, attended the Michigan Association of Health Plans conference in July and met in-person with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) new Chief Competition Officer, Stacy Sanders. NBPAS introduced Sanders to our FTC request, NBPAS’s mission, and current challenges. We look forward to continued interactions with the HHS.
• The Pennsylvania Medical Society hosted NBPAS Associate Director, Karen Schatten, on August 7th to participate in a live webinar to share more about NBPAS. We invite you to watch a recording of that webinar here - https://www.pamedsoc.org/list/articles/pamed-moc-principles

Not yet a Diplomate? Apply for NBPAS Certification today.

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