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An official publication of the ACR and the ARP serving rheumatologists and rheumatology professionals

From the College

“My Office Manager Handles That”

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Some rheumatologists in private practice are fortunate enough to have office managers who handle the business side of medicine for them. However, the truth is that it is the physician who is the leader of his or her practice, not the office manager. If nothing else, the physician is the one who manages the office manager.

I Am an Advocate

Deanna Sanchez Yamamoto, NP  |  

I have never considered myself to be a political person, much less an “advocate,” which is why I was surprised to become an ARHP advocacy committee member.

What a Bold Vision and Dedication Can Achieve

Leslie Crofford, MD  |  

Over the past two years, you have heard us talking a lot about Within Our Reach: Finding a Cure for Rheumatoid Arthritis, the Research and Education Foundation (REF) campaign to raise and award funds for investigator-initiated research to find a cure for rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Physician Leaders and the Business of Medicine

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In a perfect world, in their work, all people would do what they do best—and only what they do best. Dancers would dance, singers would sing, and physicians and healthcare professionals would spend their time treating patients, teaching, and advancing the science of their profession.

Medical Decision Making and Coding

Melesia Tillman, CPC, CCP  |  

In my years of coding for rheumatology, I am often asked this type of question: “I have a patient who recently came in for a visit. She had two or three diagnoses, was placed on three or four different medications, and we ran one or two labs on her. Does this qualify for a level-four visit?”

Let the ACR Help You Improve Your Practice

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Today’s rheumatology practices face increasing internal and external pressures. Staffing effectiveness and efficiency, overhead increases, coding and billing issues, litigious employees, conflicts with colleagues, new competition, changing patient attitudes, new revenue constraints, and managed care contracting and compliance are just some of the pressures that constantly push practices to their limits.

Bridge Funding Award Keeps Researcher on the Path to Her Passion

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On June 25, 2008, the American College of Rheumatology Research and Education Foundation received a letter from Sujata Sarkar, MD, one of the first recipients of the ACR REF/Arthritis Foundation Bridge Funding Award. In that letter Dr. Sarkar wrote, “I am very thankful to you … This award has come to me at a very crucial and vulnerable time in my academic career as a junior researcher.” The crucial and vulnerable time to which Dr. Sarkar refers is the time when she would need to search for alternative funding to pay for her rheumatology research career—or leave academia altogether.

I Am an Advocate

Charles King, MD  |  

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.” Cliché perhaps, but certainly fitting in describing the practice of rheumatology of late. We have been blessed with a widening array of therapies with which to treat rheumatologic illnesses. The advent of the biological era promises even greater potential for meaningful reductions in disability and death from these diseases.