The American Board of Radiology revealed recently that has no plans to reduce exam fees following its transition to a virtual test-taking business model.
ABR is making the switch away from in-person certification in 2021 after radiologists demanded alternatives amid the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the “perceived potential benefits” of the change was a reduction in costs and user fees. However, leaders with the Tucson, Arizona, doc-certification group said uncertainty is preventing them from changing pricing.
“There are persistent barriers to fee abatement at the time of this writing,” Executive Director Brent Wagner, MD, MBA, and American Board of Radiology President Vincent Mathews wrote in the latest issue of the Beam. Those include the new exam structure’s unproven track record, a lack of dependable forecasting, long-term financial commitments for in-person exam centers, and unpredictable costs tied to the virtual exam software.
Wagner and Mathews said their organization is committed to controlling costs and optimistic this will be achievable in the future.
“Despite these obstacles, the board members view themselves as responsible stewards of ABR resources, both financial and otherwise,” they concluded. “In this vein, they consistently challenge each other, and the ABR staff, to reduce costs and, subsequently, fees, to the extent possible.”
The American College of Radiology and others have criticized ABR in recent years over its finances, alleged secrecy and “power imbalance” over members of the specialty. A report from ACR’s Task Force on Certification estimated the average rad spends $14,680 during their career to maintain accreditation—one of the highest tallies among medical specialties. A Tennessee radiologist twice attempted to sue ABR over its program, but a judge tossed the claim in January.
High fees are one of the chief complaints from radiologists, the report noted. Residents and fellows pay about $640 a year for ABR’s services, on top of high student debt loads, while the board has tens of millions in assets and annual revenue of $14 million in 2018.
Ben White—a Texas neuroradiologist, blogger and outspoken ABR critic—questioned the board’s reasoning in a post shared Tuesday.
“Does any stakeholder believe that ~$50 million in cash reserves isn’t enough to deal with ‘a lack of dependable forecasts of the future steady-state expense structure,’” White wrote Feb. 23. “Transparency, transparency, transparency. Anything less is just self-love,” he added later.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.