National Arthritis Foundation Threatening to Discontinue Critical Program
July 20 2020 – The top nine executives at the National Arthritis Foundation make more than $200,000 a year each, including $592,831 for the CEO, according to the organization’s 2018 IRS FORM 990. Yet, the organization claims it doesn’t have the less than $50,000 a year to continue a program in Palm Beach and Martin Counties that has provided free care for more than 700 patients who suffer from severe arthritic symptoms.
For more than 40 years, local rheumatologists have donated their services at four Quick Family Arthritis Foundation Clinic locations to help patients. Mike Schweitz, MD, one of the clinic’s founders, and Shawn Baca, MD, are among 14 local rheumatologists who donate their time to care for patients. They are sounding the alarm about what they say could be a devastating decision. The clinics are located in Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, West Palm Beach and Stuart.
“These patients cannot afford the specialized care or the expensive medications without the support of these clinics,” stressed Dr. Schweitz.
“There is nowhere else for these patients to go,” added Shawn Baca, M.D., whose Rheumatology Associates of South Florida practice supports the clinics and works with pharmaceutical companies to donate the necessary drugs. “Closing these clinics simply isn’t an acceptable option.”
Nerida, age 52, who prefers not to use her last name, is one of the patients who says she would be lost without the support she receives from the clinics. She requires weekly shots of Enbrel, a medication, she describes as a “miracle,” yet has a list price of $ $5,380.13 a month. The Arthritis Foundation Clinic is the only place she can get the specialized care she needs from a rheumatologist. She also requires frequent and expensive lab work to ensure any issues and side effects are managed properly.
A resident of Florida since 2006, Nerida works as an office assistant and does not have health insurance. She receives other health care from the Caridad Center in Boynton Beach, but that organization does not offer care from rheumatologists. In a June 5, 2020 letter to the entire National Board of Directors of the Arthritis Foundation, she pleaded, “ . . . please reconsider your intention to close the clinics. This is serious to me and to all patients who needed you before and need you more now.”
Keen Williams is only 40 years old, but also depends on care from the clinics. Born and raised in Jamaica, he moved to Florida when he was 25 to be closer to his mother and other family members. He worked as an electrician until one morning in 2016 he woke up with an unexplained pain in his knee. A visit to an orthopedic provided little relief and soon the pain and swelling spread to all of his joints.
For the next year, Williams was in and out of hospitals in an effort to get a diagnosis and treatment. Unfortunately, he lost his job in the process and has been unable to maintain Medicaid coverage. In 2017, he was referred to one of the Arthritis Foundation Clinics, where rheumatologists determined that he suffers from both adult-onset Still’s disease and Rheumatoid arthritis (RA). After trying numerous medications, he finally found relief under the care of specialists and feels blessed to have discovered the clinic and Jonathan Greer, MD, who cares for him at the Boynton Beach location.
“Before I would spend so much time going to the emergency room and staying in hospitals only to have the pain return in a few days,” recalled Williams, who has to use crutches to get around when he has a flare up. “Now that I’ve been seen by specialists, I see a huge difference. The clinic has given me my life back.”
Florida Society of Rheumatology President Dr. Guillermo Valenzuela also weighed in on this issue with his own communications to the national office of the Arthritis Foundation, stating:
“As you can imagine, especially during these difficult times, an already vulnerable group of patients will further feel and suffer for their loss of the care kindly provided by our colleagues.
The Arthritis Foundation has the privilege of caring and extending help to our patients, and we partner in that effort. I kindly request you to reconsider a decision that would ultimately hurt not only patients, but everyone directly or indirectly involved with them.
“I am asking the Arthritis Foundation to stand, today more than ever, and carry out its mission.”
Dr. Baca concluded: “The donors and patients in this community feel slighted that the fund raising they have done for the Arthritis Foundation over the years is no longer being spent to help patients as originally intended.”
To support this effort to save the Florida Arthritis Foundation Clinics, please reach out to the organization’s national CEO Ann Palmer at apalmer@arthritis.org.
