“With the perspective of more than four decades in the private practice of medicine, we have been witness to the impact that policy has on our patients and the care we are able to give them,” says Herbert Baraf, MD, ARA’s managing partner.
Although every member of ARA had made personal donations to RheumPAC in the last few years, the practice’s physicians were troubled that only 4% of the ACR’s U.S. members had similarly supported the ACR’s agenda on Capitol Hill, Dr. Baraf says.
“Government policies can either elevate care or hinder it. Good policies are the byproduct of well-educated legislators,” he says. “These legislators gain an understanding of rheumatology’s issues through their interactions with ACR members who visit their offices or attend their events. We believed monies from practices like ours to the RheumPAC Advocacy Fund could help increase RheumPAC’s reach inside the ACR’s membership.”
Dr. Baraf hopes that ARA’s donation to the RheumPAC Advocacy Fund will help seed an increased awareness of the importance of advocacy and improve engagement among ACR members. He says supporting the fund will “allow the ACR to advance advocacy for patients, research and rational payment policies, which in turn should lead to improvement of the lives of patients with rheumatic diseases.”
How to Give
Is your practice or state society interested in donating to the ACR’s Advocacy Fund? Donate by writing a corporate check to RheumPAC Advocacy Fund and mailing it to:
RheumPAC
2200 Lake Boulevard NE
Atlanta, GA 30319
Carina Stanton is a freelance science journalist based in Denver.
