From The College June 2006

The complete newsletter is available in PDF format, below.

Featured Article

ACR Launches Practice Management ‘List Serves’

List serves - e-mail discussion groups designed for interactive discussions with your colleagues - have arrived at the American College of Rheumatology with the launch of five regional list serves and one coder/practice manager list serve this June.

“I am quite excited about the possibility of the ACR adding list serves. I think it will be a great tool for the Regional Advisory Council - one which will help facilitate communications between our committee, state societies, and individual ACR members,” said Dan Fohrman, MD, Chair of the Regional Advisory Council. Designed to improve communication among members, offer a forum for exchanging ideas, and allow you to benefit from the experience, knowledge, and wisdom of your colleagues, the launch date for these list serves is Thursday, June 15.

Regional List Serves
This new member benefit is intended to help members help each other solve common problems. At its best, a list serve can work like this:

Dr. Smith begins noticing that he is receiving denials for one type of medication, and wants to know if others in his region are experiencing the same thing. Between patient visits he quickly sends an e-mail to the Western Region list serve. Several members reply, including Dr. Jones who states she had the same problem and found she needed to include patient weights so her claims were not rejected. Every member in the Western Region who subscribes to this ACR list serve was able to receive Dr. Smith’s request, offer up suggestions or advice, or simply “lurk” and view the responses.

E-mail lists work by allowing a common group of individuals to use one e-mail address to send, receive and respond to information. That’s how all of the ACR regional list serves will work, and the range of topics that can be discussed via this e-mail discussion group on any given day is virtually unlimited.
Once you subscribe, you are instantly connected to other rheumatologists in your region and can begin immediately communicating with your colleagues. Because the success of any e-mail list hinges on the active participation of subscribers, we encourage ACR members to sign up for their region’s list serve today.

Coder/Practice Manager List Serve
Do your coding staff or practice managers wish they had a better way to connect with their peers across the country? Now they do. The ACR Coder/Practice Manager list serve will allow the staff of ACR members to communicate with their peers about coding questions, troubleshooting tactics and other issues.

How to Sign Up
You must be a member of ACR or ARHP to sign up for the regional list serves. ACR members will need to sign up their coders and practice managers if these individuals are not ACR/ARHP members. To subscribe, go to www.rheumatology.org/listserves and complete a short registration form. You will be able to choose how you prefer to receive your list serve messages (e.g., as they are posted, or a daily or weekly digest format), and manage your individual settings. Once an individual has signed up for the list serve, they will receive a confirmation e-mail that will include sending and receiving instructions, list rules, etiquette guidelines and other information.

These list serves are a benefit of ACR/ARHP membership, and subscribing is quick and easy (and must be done online).

The small print…
ACR staff will monitor the list serve to ensure compliance with the rules, and will occasionally offer answers or solicit member feedback about an issue. Basic regulations regarding patient privacy and antitrust issues will be included in each list serve’s rules. Specific patient cases - even de-identified cases - and anything money-related (e.g., charge amounts, payments, or salaries) are out-of-bounds. Courtesy and professionalism are expected at all times. The list serve will not allow attachments to prevent viruses from being transferred.

The Regional Advisory Council is excited about the launch of these list serves. Not only will they allow regional advisors to quickly communicate practice management or reimbursement issues to subscribers in their region, it will allow rheumatologists and health professionals to communicate among themselves about such issues in their own practices.

Visit www.rheumatology.org/listserves for more information about the lists, rules and to subscribe. If you have any questions, please contact Antanya Chung, CPC, or Melesia Collins, CPC at (404) 633-3777 or at achung@rheumatology.org or mcollins@rheumatology.org.