Relationship Between Physicians' Active Participation in Maintenance of Certification and Patients' Perspective of...

Medical specialty boards have a Maintenance of Certification (MOC) paradigm whose intention is to ensure high-quality patient care. How the patient experience is affected by physician MOC enrollment/participation is unknown. Our goal was to determine if patient experience is associated with physician board certification and MOC status.

We analyzed physician experience and MOC databases to determine the relationships among physicians' patient experience national percentile rankings and board certification status and MOC enrollment and activity status.

Board-certified physicians enrolled in MOC did not have statistically significant different patient experience scores compared to board-certified physicians not enrolled in MOC. Mid-career physicians enrolled in MOC had patients more likely to recommend them and reported higher confidence in them. Patients did not perceive physicians participating in MOC patient safety modules as more cautious in providing patient care.

Although most analyses did not demonstrate significant differences in patient experience scores for physicians actively participating in MOC compared to those not, some differences were noted. Higher provider-specific patient experience scores were noted, particularly for mid-career physicians.