The surveys are indeed critical, agrees Antanya Chung, ACR’s director of practice management. “I understand how busy rheumatology professionals are, and that this survey takes some time to fill out and can even be a bit frustrating—but it helps with the business of medicine, and the business of medicine is part of any practice,” she asserts. The ACR has videos that provide survey help, and she is also available to field questions, she adds. “The reason we so strongly encourage members to fill out the surveys is that their responses really do affect rheumatology practice today and the future of medicine overall.”
Going Forward
Although Dr. Barré realizes he still has much to learn, he is looking forward to the next meeting of the RUC where he will become a formal—albeit “very junior”—member of the ACR RUC team. He remarks, “Hopefully, I can be an effective representative of the rheumatology specialty. There is not a whole lot more important to how medicine in general, and rheumatology in particular, is practiced than how it is paid for. And the RUC is incredibly important for influencing that.”
Dr. Laing is glad to welcome a new generation of ACR participants like Dr. Barré, he says. “If we don’t have representation, we won’t have any influence over these decisions that affect our profession. Rheumatology is better served if we have a seat at the table.”
Leslie Mertz, PhD, is a freelance science journalist based in northern Michigan.
