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While
payers talk about rewarding physicians for outcomes, the
American Board of Internal Medicine is taking a concrete
step forward.
Starting
next January, for the first time doctors of internal medicine
seeking to maintain their board certifications will be evaluated
on practice performance as well as on medical knowledge,
ABIM announced earlier this month.
Beginning
over a decade ago, ABIM made a re-certification process
mandatory for physicians to continue to identify themselves
as board-certified. Some other specialties, such as family
medicine, have had re-certification requirements for much
longer.
Also
effective in January, physicians who are in the midst of
the internists' ten-year cycle will be required to complete
a self evaluation and practice-improvement project on some
aspect of their clinical care as part of the re-certification
process. Internists must complete the process to call themselves
board-certified.
Under
the program, physicians will analyze patient data to choose
a target for improvement, change their practices to accomplish
the improvement goal, and then measure results and report
them to ABIM. To help physicians focus their self-evaluations
on evidence-based practice in high-need areas, ABIM offers
modules on preventive services, diabetes, preventive cardiology,
asthma, hypertension, and care of the vulnerable elderly.
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