Pathologists are legendary for blending their work product with the culinary arts. Through the years, their use of delectable foods as descriptors has created a clever way to indelibly link in the minds of clinicians the histopathologic observations of disease with an assortment of these tasty foods: There is the depiction of an apple green…
At their state capitol in Tallahassee on March 28, seven board members of the Florida Society of Rheumatology (FSR) lobbied to support legislation regarding prior authorization, step therapy and non-medical switching. They also educated lawmakers about rheumatic diseases and how access to the right therapy may dramatically improve patients’ lives. “We talked about the problems encountered…
A coalition of patient and provider groups, including the ACR, is raising awareness about the effect of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) on patient care and the cost of prescription drugs. The Alliance for Transparent and Affordable Prescriptions, or ATAP, argues that too few restrictions have been placed on PBM transparency, and requirements for PBMs to…
The work of health policy reform is a marathon, not a sprint. The ACR is encouraged by the forward progress being made in collaboration with the American Medical Association and other physician-led organizations within the Healthcare Leaders for Accountable Innovation in Medicare and Medicaid coalition (known as the AIM coalition) to advocate for physicians’ ability…
On many Saturday evenings, Kaleb Michaud, PhD, saves the world from pandemics, harvests barrels of coffee beans to sell at market or helps King Brandur recover the fabled Runic DragonStones. Dr. Michaud, an associate professor in the division of rheumatology and immunology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) in Omaha and also co-director of…
“What are you?” A faculty member at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine posed this question to a resident while attending rounds. Both were portraying a scene involving micro-aggression during Differences Matter, a three-day orientation for first-year medical students. On the program’s first day, students are introduced to unconscious bias and…
What does a new patient experience as symptoms develop and diagnosis is confirmed? Who is involved in the care of a newly diagnosed patient with rheumatoid arthritis (RA)? The ARHP Practice Committee has developed a case study that will help answer these questions . Meet Joy G., a 48-year-old woman with RA. Follow Joy through…
NEW YORK (Reuters)—Aetna Inc, Chief Executive Officer Mark Bertolini wants a debate about what a single-payer healthcare system in the U.S would look like, but says he does not think the federal government should run it. “I think government-run healthcare would be a bad idea,” Bertolini says during an investor conference on Frida. The government’s…
(Reuters)—Health insurer Aetna Inc said on Wednesday it will exit the 2018 Obamacare individual insurance market in Delaware and Nebraska – the two remaining states where it offered the plans. Aetna had already said it would exit the individual commercial market in Virginia and Iowa, after pulling out of several other states last year. Aetna…
(Reuters Health)—Grating, cracking or popping sounds around joints may predict future arthritis, especially in the knees, according to a recent U.S. study. Among thousands of people with no knee pain who were followed for three years, one quarter had noisy knees yet they made up three quarters of the cases of symptomatic knee arthritis that…