Clinical Academic Rheumatology: Still Getting More Than You Pay For

Clinical academic rheumatology and still getting more than you pay for: comment on the editorial by West and Holers

“…He expresses 2 concerns in regard to our recommendation to screen outpatient rheumatology consults to prioritize evaluating patients with inflammatory rheumatic diseases over patients with noninflammatory musculoskeletal disorders. This screening process, which has been used at the University of Colorado, was found to generate 44 times more revenue (1). We suggested this screening process could be used to support higher compensation for clinical academic rheumatologists, who have been shown in 2 studies to generate 10 to 12 times more downstream revenue than they are paid (2,3).…”