New standards for physicians’ certified status

Nov 8, 2010 by Andrew

Doctors working in Texas emergency rooms told the Texas Medical Board a few weeks ago that a year in-the-making rule restricting the claims that doctors can make about their credentials would seriously hurt hem and patients across the state.

The board disagreed and approved the rule, which says doctors credentialed after Sept. 1 cannot advertise that they are “board certified” in their field — an indication of a high level of expertise — unless they have successfully completed requirements that include several years of supervised training or a residency, in their specialty area.

A three-year residency has been the common standard in emergency medicine since 1988, when the nation’s largest board that credentials specialty doctors made the change.

Emergency room doctors who testified before the board said the new rule would make them less attractive to hospitals and ultimately reduce the supply of ER doctors, especially in rural areas.

But supporters said the rule elevates emergency medicine certification to the gold
standard of other specialties. And most board members who spoke in favor of it agreed as they tried to assure skeptical opponents that the rule only affects how doctors advertise themselves — and won’t affect their jobs.

As a marketing tool, many hospitals tout that all of their ER doctors are board-certified, but that might not mean what some people think. Some doctors might have had a residency in family practice, not emergency medicine, but can still claim to be board-certified in Texas.

Consequently, “the public can be misled regarding a physician’s credentials,” said Dr. John Becher Jr., past president of the American College of Osteopathic Emergency Physicians in Chicago.

The new rule changes that. The American Board of Physician Specialties has certified 170 emergency medicine doctors in Texas without requiring a residency in that field.

Regardless, any doctors certified under the board’s old rule would be grandfathered in and could advertise they are board-certified under the new rule.

Most representatives of national emergency physician organizations said they favored the rule — except for the grandfather provision. At the very least, they said, it confuses the public.

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