Evaluating board certification during the credentialing process

The world of board certification is complicated by the fact that many physicians subspecialize and many specialty societies offer subspecialty boards or “certificates of added qualifications.” It is often a challenge for these physicians to maintain board certification in their original board and subspecialty board(s). For example, should a physician who becomes board certified in child and adolescent psychiatry also be expected to maintain his or her boards in general psychiatry? In eval¬uating the board certification history of a practitioner, it is important to look at his or her training and practice chronology and match this up with the actual boards he or she chooses to maintain. Where doctors choose not to participate in a maintenance of certification (MOC) program, it is always prudent to ask whether this is a reflection on that clinician’s competence. While many competent physicians will forgo MOC, there are certainly physicians whose competence is marginal or inade¬quate who would not be capable of achieving ongoing board certification.

Source: Proctoring, FPPE, and Practitioner Competency Assessment: A Clinical Leader’s Guide