“Our MOC program already recognizes so much of what physicians are doing in practice to stay up to date,” said Dr. Baron, also of the University of California, San Francisco. “We can and should do more in that area. We are getting a lot of feedback from physicians about how we can improve MOC, and this feedback will help us shape what we know will be an evolving program.”
“In conversations we have already had with the community, one thing physicians have shared loud and clear is that they deeply value staying current in their field,” he added. “They believe they should spend time staying abreast of the latest updates in their discipline. We are talking with the community to assure that MOC gives them a structured way to stay current, and we all agree it is an important marker for patients that they have done so.”
“The researchers make some claims about overall costs to the health care system,” Dr. Baron said. “If you accept their methodology, which is a stretch, other research that appeared in JAMA in December showed greater overall savings – 30 times as much as the costs reported here – just in Medicare costs for physicians who participated in MOC. So maybe all those hours spent keeping up are worth it, not just for the physicians and the patients we take care of but for our entire health care system.”