The ACR will seek Congressional action if the Medicare Part B demonstration project proposed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is not significantly altered by the agency. Today, Medicare Part B generally pays physicians and hospital outpatient departments the average sales price of a drug, plus a 6% add-on, minus reductions required…
How Sick Is Your Patient? Document the Details!
Clear. Complete. Concise. These three Cs describe ideal patient record keeping, which is why they are among the key reasons to implement a clinical documentation information (CDI) program into your rheumatology practice. Not only will CDI help you accurately document the full picture of each patient’s clinical status, but it also promotes high-quality care and…
The ACR and Partners Help Get Legislation Passed in New York to Limit Step Therapy
In June, state lawmakers in New York passed legislation on step therapy designed to help ensure patient access to the best and most appropriate care. Step therapy mandates that a patient with a specific condition receive prescribed drugs approved for that condition in the order that an insurance company determines it will cover as the…
Proposed CMS Physician Fee Schedule May Offer Slight Increases
All eyes are on the new physician fee schedule proposed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which will be finalized this year and go into effect Jan. 1. The ACR is reviewing the proposal and will be providing comments and recommendations to CMS. And many rheumatologists have payment and coding questions: Will…
Generic TNF-Alpha Inhibitors Comparable to Established Brands
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Biosimilar tumor necrosis factor-alpha inhibitors appear equivalent to the branded original versions, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis. As Dr. G. Caleb Alexander tells Reuters Health by email, “biologic treatments represent a rapidly growing proportion of prescription drug expenditures and thus there is enormous interest in whether or not biosimilar products…
Non-Celiac Wheat Sensitivity Is an Immune Disorder, Too
(Reuters Health)—People who feel ill after eating wheat, but who don’t have celiac disease, may finally have a biological explanation for their symptoms, a new study suggests. Researchers from the U.S. and Italy found that people who claim to have wheat sensitivity do have biological reactions to gluten proteins in wheat, rye and barley. It’s…
New RA Therapy Promising in Clinical Trial
Results from a clinical trial support the efficacy of vobarilizumab for treating RA. Plus, the UK will recommend the use of certolizumab pegol to treat severe cases of RA in upcoming guidelines…
Milestones of Rheumatology Education
In 2013, a collaboration began to advance the training and assessment of fellows. The result: A uniform set of educational reporting milestones for all internal medicine subspecialties was developed. Key stakeholders were then asked to develop a list of entrustable professional activities (EPAs), a set of responsibilities any specialist should be able to perform, for their subspecialties. The ACR’s Next Accreditation System working group developed 14 EPAs for rheumatology…
Methotrexate with Step-Down Glucocorticoid Remission Induction Works in Early RA
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Methotrexate with step-down glucocorticoid remission induction (COBRA Slim) is an effective, safe and feasible initial treatment strategy for patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (RA), researchers from Belgium report. Patients with early RA should be treated rapidly, intensively and to target, according to current guidelines, they note in a paper online July 18…
Ultrasound May Be Useful for Grading Rotator Cuff Tendinopathy
Researchers have developed procedures and assessed their efficacy for the use of ultrasound images to measure the inter-rater reliability of the measurement of structural changes in the tendon of patients with supraspinatus tendinopathy. The standardized procedures proved useful in evaluating patients…
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