Dr. Moynihan’s work with the AMA has included her election by the AMA’s Board of Trustees to serve as vice co-chair of the Relative Value Update Committee (RUC). Within the ACR, she also chaired the Committee on Rheumatologic Care (CORC) for three years and served on the Board of Directors.
Maintaining Critical Representation
The delegates’ message to their rheumatology colleagues is to ensure that they maintain their AMA membership, because delegate seats are awarded based upon the percentage of specialists who are AMA members.
ACR AMA delegation members. Back row, L to R: Dr. Bryant, Adam Cooper, VP Practice, Advocacy & Quality, Dr. Barré, Dr. Moynihan, Dr. Edgerton. Front row, L to R: Dr. Downey, Dr. Arriens
“The AMA is such an important aspect of advocacy. I would urge everyone, even if they have let their AMA membership lapse, to renew and join back in,” Dr. Arriens says.
Dr. Downey also advises engaging with state medical societies and elected representatives. She’s been involved in advocacy work for her entire career, from participation in the inaugural class of the Advocacy 101 program to her current role as chair of ACR’s Government Affairs Committee. “So much of what we do as physicians is out of our control,” she says. “If we’re in clinical practice, that means that we are abiding by rules and regulations that are set by people who are very unlikely to be physicians. So unless there are physicians who are sharing their perspectives and speaking up about the ways that all of the various rules and regulations impact physicians, someone’s going to be making those decisions for us. And that is less tolerable to me than at least trying to have a say.”
