High-resolution computed tomography shows evidence of ILD.
The ACR/CHEST ILD Guidelines in Practice, a video
In collaboration with the American College of Chest Physicians, the ACR released two new comprehensive guidelines aimed at improving the screening, monitoring, and treatment of patients with interstitial lung disease (ILD) secondary to systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (SARDs). Recently, Sindhu R. Johnson, MD, PhD, professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, Canada, director of the Toronto Scleroderma Program and principal investigator for the guideline, and Elana J. Bernstein, MD, MSc, Florence Irving associate professor of medicine in the Division of Rheumatology at Columbia University, New York City, and co-first author, presented a webinar to talk about how the guidelines were developed and present some of the recommendations and their rationale: Watch the recording now!
Hundreds of rheumatology providers across the country are finalizing submissions for the first year of reporting under the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). According to a presentation at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in San Diego, providers that participate in and submit through the Rheumatology Informatics System for Effectiveness (RISE) Registry are poised to perform…
If there’s one thing America needs right now, it’s more money in politics. I’m being facetious, but I do want to ask all of you to invest in RheumPAC today. Given the relatively small size of our subspecialty, it is easy for lawmakers to overlook the consequences that laws may have on our field of…
Greetings, Advocates! Great news for the rheumatology community came on Feb. 9, when the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 was enacted. It contains several critical healthcare fixes pertinent to rheumatology. First, after hundreds of emails, meetings, letters to the editor, an op-ed, and a forceful 109-member coalition (led by the ACR and including many state…
WASHINGTON (Reuters)—The U.S. Justice Department will argue the federal government deserves reimbursement for costs it has borne stemming from the opioid crisis in a “statement of interest” it plans to file in a lawsuit against drug manufacturers and distributors, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Tuesday. “I am announcing today that the department will…
(Reuters)—A coalition of 20 U.S. states sued the federal government on Monday over Obamacare, claiming the law was no longer constitutional after the repeal last year of its requirement that people have health insurance or pay a fine. Led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, the lawsuit said that…
Although six biosimilar agents have now been approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration for use in rheumatology, scientific, clinical, economic and prescribing questions about the use of biosimilars abound. In fact, at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in San Diego, Joseph Huffstutter, MD, a rheumatologist in private practice in Chattanooga, Tenn., said that…
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters)—The U.S. government on Tuesday proposed extending the availability of skimpy health insurance plans to millions of Americans in another Trump administration move aimed at undercutting the requirements of the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a proposed rule that such plans, now available…
On Dec. 20, 2017, Congress passed a massive tax bill that will have an impact on nearly every individual and business in America. The bill makes sweeping revisions to existing tax provisions, and it will largely affect the health industry. Individual Mandate Repealed The bill repeals the individual mandate established in 2005 by the Affordable…
With the aid of increasingly sophisticated neuroimaging technology, research into how the brain activates and changes in patients with chronic pain is delivering fascinating information that will hopefully pave the way to tailored, individual treatment of chronic pain. Over the past several years, data from neuroimaging studies have provided a new understanding of what occurs…
SAN DIEGO—An increasing number of patients is being identified with deficiency of adenosine deaminase type 2 (DADA2); fortunately, researchers and clinicians continue to better understand the genetic disease as well, experts said in a session at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting Nov. 3–8. The childhood-onset disease involves loss-of-function mutations to the CECR1 gene (i.e., cat…