The ACR Practice Management Department actively works to provide valuable, accessible resources addressing practice issues on a local and national level to rheumatologists and their staff. Our trained professionals are devoted to providing the most up-to-date tools and resources to help improve practice efficiency while meeting the myriad compliance obligations of the ever-changing healthcare landscape….
Take the challenge. CPT codes: 20611-LT, 20611-RT, J7326x2 or 20611, 20611-50, J7326x2 ICD-10: M17.0 Coding Rationale The CPT code 20611 is for an arthrocentesis, aspiration and/or injection, major joint or bursa (e.g., shoulder, hip, knee or subacromial bursa with ultrasound guidance, with permanent recording and reporting). The code is billed twice because this was a…
A 68-year-old male patient returns to the office for his scheduled bilateral knee injections for primary osteoarthritis. The patient rates the pain in his right knee at an 8 on a scale of 10, and the pain in his left knee at a 7. He was in the office a week before, but the practice…
Charity Navigator, America’s largest and most-utilized independent evaluator of charities, has awarded the Rheumatology Research Foundation its ninth consecutive 4-star rating. The prestigious 4-star rating is the highest possible rating given and is based on good governance, sound fiscal management and commitment to accountability and transparency. “The Rheumatology Research Foundation is proud to receive this…
Persistent Challenges Sometimes the challenges seem neverending. In addition to the rigors of our daily lives as rheumatology health professionals—growing administrative burdens, increasing pressures to fund research and achieve balance in family and personal lives—we face a growing number of challenges related to the rapidly escalating prices of rheumatology treatments. Even more unfortunately, these costs…
4 Patients in 4 Weeks Baltimore is a little over two hours away from Richmond, Va., by car. I know this now because I recently drove to Richmond to attend a memorial service. I drove in silence. Music made me sleepy, and I could not bear to listen to another iteration of how we are…
The year was 1991. It was my first Tuesday as a rheumatology fellow at the University of Pittsburgh’s Presbyterian Hospital. Navigating a maze of buildings and hallways, I delivered myself to the entrance to the scleroderma clinic. Running late and not knowing whether there was a separate entrance for staff, I clicked open the door….
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—The biosimilar LBEC0101 is equivalent to etanercept (Enbrel) in treating patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who respond inadequately to methotrexate, according to researchers from Korea and Japan. As Dr. Yeong-Wook Song tells Reuters Health by email, “LBEC0101 is comparable in efficacy, safety and immunogenicity profile to Enbrel.” The findings, he adds, could…
Several major health plans have recently enacted policies regarding coverage status for Remicade (infliximab) and its biosimilars, Inflectra (infliximab-dyyb) and Renflexis (infliximab-abda). Most of these plans are limiting coverage for the biosimilar products to very specific circumstances. Some have also begun denying claims for biosimilars and instructing patients to switch to Remicade. The plans implementing…
Prior authorization treatment delays, the preferred status conferred on some drugs by pharmacy benefit managers and exorbitant co-payments were among the issues brought before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging on Wednesday, Feb. 7. William F. Harvey, MD, MSc, FACR, a practicing rheumatologist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston and volunteer on the ACR…