On April 1, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the beginning of the 45-day Open Payments Review and dispute period, which will conclude on May 15. After the review period concludes, on June 30, CMS will publish 2015 payment data along with updates to the 2013 and 2014 data. If you are…
Platelet-Rich Plasma Therapy May Treat Degenerative Tendinopathies & Pain
A recent small-scale study showed that patients who received platelet-rich plasma therapy for tendon healing experienced clinically important improvements in pain and disability compared with placebo. Additionally, MRI showed that some participants had improvement in the pathoanatomy of the rotator cuff six months after treatment…
2015 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting: Global Challenges in Rheumatic Disease Care
SAN FRANCISCO—To convey the plight of rheumatology patients in sub-Saharan Africa, Girish Mody, MD, head of rheumatology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and past president of the African League of Associations for Rheumatology, recounted a story during the 2015 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting from the World Health Organization about a diabetes patient. The…
Sifalimumab Shows Some Promise Against Lupus
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Sifalimumab, an anti-interferon alpha monoclonal antibody, may lead to some improvement in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), according to a new trial. In a paper online on March 23 in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, Dr. Munther Khamashta of King’s College London and colleagues note that treatment of SLE presents a…
The Microbiome in Pediatric Rheumatic Diseases
The human intestinal microbiota is home to more than 1,000 bacterial species, containing approximately 3 million genes, many of which code for functions that have the potential to affect human physiology.1 Smaller numbers of organisms are also present in the skin, upper gastrointestinal tract, female reproductive tract and the oro- and nasopharynx. As tools have…
Technological Advances Linked to Medical Misadventures
For keen students of American politics, the unending intrigue of the 2016 presidential race has been riveting. With an assemblage of aspiring candidates that, at its start, included a bevy of U.S. senators and former governors, a media-savvy real estate mogul, a renowned Hopkins neurosurgeon and an ophthalmologist, political junkies among us have feasted on…
Practicing Mindfulness Can Help Alter Patients’ Experience with Chronic Rheumatic Diseases
Mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while acknowledging and non-judgmentally accepting one’s feelings, thoughts and bodily sensations. Known in Sanskrit as smrti, meaning “to remember,” in Pali, the language of early Buddhist scriptures, it is recognized by the word sati (mindfulness).1 Derived from ancient meditative Buddhist disciplines,…
Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015: What You Should Know
There is no denying that the past few years have been a time of immense change in healthcare. Sweeping pieces of legislation have fundamentally altered the way we practice medicine. This is absolutely the case when it comes to the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA, for short). MACRA is an enormous…
Rheumatology Research Foundation Creates Five-Year Strategic Plan
Dramatic advancements in research toward prevention and cure are at risk, as federal research funding for rheumatic diseases has declined by 40% over the past five years. With that, an alarming number of rheumatologists are preparing for retirement. To stop this worrying trend, a strategic plan for the next five years was developed to complement…
6 Tips for Writing a Good Clinical Case Report
“That’s a great case. Why don’t we write it up?” It’s a question I’ve heard many times throughout medical school, residency and fellowship. It’s typically intended to be more of a politely worded request than a rhetorical question. We must acknowledge that the process of writing, editing and submitting a case report is onerous, but it…
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