The field of rheumatology is leading the way in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ new MIPS Value Pathways with rheumatology-specific quality measures and improvement activities.

Allison Plitman |
The field of rheumatology is leading the way in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ new MIPS Value Pathways with rheumatology-specific quality measures and improvement activities.
Rheumatologists may need to downsize and restrict patient care if Congress doesn’t act to block significant cuts to Medicare reimbursement rates totaling 9.75% in 2022.
Ghalandari et al. sought to validate the guidance outlined by EULAR for the use of anti-rheumatic drugs during pregnancy, finding that following its guidance for tumor necrosis factor inhibitors led to no or low concentrations of these agents in cord blood.
U.S. Food & Drug Administration |
On Oct. 15, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first interchangeable biosimilar product to treat certain inflammatory diseases. Cyltezo (adalimumab-adbm), originally approved in August 2017, is both biosimilar to and interchangeable with (i.e, may be substituted for) its reference product Humira (adalimumab) for Cyltezo’s approved uses. Cyltezo is the second interchangeable biosimilar…
Ethan Craig, MD, MHS |
It feels like a long decade has passed since March 2020. At The Rheumatologist, we closed out 2020 with a special supplement on gout. Physician Editor Phil Seo, MD, MHS, kicked off that supplement with, “COVID-19. Black Lives Matter. A new gout guideline. These are some of the things 2020 ushered in. And we’re unlikely…
The use of objective, validated outcome measures to track progress in symptom control for patients with psoriatic arthritis was discussed in a session at the 2019 ACR/ARP Annual Meeting titled Optimizing Outcomes in Psoriatic Arthritis: A Domain-Based Strategy. In the years since this presentation, additional research has helped supply greater insights into this topic and…
We are fortunate to have clinical practice guidelines for the management of psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis (PsA) from multiple organizations to help navigate today’s rapidly evolving therapeutic landscape. We are further fortunate to have multiple specialists to manage these conditions: rheumatologists and dermatologists. However, multiple guidelines, multiple drugs and multiple specialists can create a paradox…
As treatments for psoriatic arthritis (PsA) emerge, a clinical trial comparing the Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor upadacitinib and the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitor adalimumab provided some new insights. Published earlier this year in The New England Journal of Medicine, the SELECT-PsA 1, double-blind, phase 3 trial found that a 30 mg dose of upadacitinib…
Sarah D. Bayefsky, MD, Kimberly DeQuattro, MD, & Rebecca E. Sadun, MD, PhD |
Approximately 50% of young adult patients with childhood-onset rheumatic diseases become lost to follow-up within the first year of transferring to adult rheumatology care, mirroring the statistics of other subspecialties.1,2 One of the challenges cited most consistently by young adult patients and their families relates to differences between rheumatology care delivery in the pediatric and…
Jeffrey Siegel, MD, Assumes New Position as Director for New Office of Drug Evaluation Sciences at the FDA On Feb. 16, Jeffrey Siegel, MD, became the director of the recently created Office of Drug Evaluation Sciences at the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA). The move, he says, “puts together many of the different things…