For the past 30 years, the Rheumatology Research Foundation has been an invaluable resource for investigators looking to further their careers and expand essential research into rheumatic diseases. Among the Foundation’s many award recipients is Robert Plenge, MD, PhD. In 2008, Dr. Plenge received a grant from the Foundation to pursue finding a genetic basis…
As a practicing rheumatologist, I have experienced the increasing payer and government involvement shaping our evolving healthcare system. New payment models, changes in health insurance coverage, the federal mandate for the adoption of electronic health records and the implementation of ICD-10 are recent changes that have rocked our world. Our patients are also paying the…
I sometimes find myself mired in sticky clinical circumstances. I am facing a distraught patient who is seeking my opinion about a condition that, according to some, may not truly belong in the rheumatologist’s bailiwick. Case example: hearing loss. The Steroid Test Sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) and its relative, autoimmune inner ear disease (AIED),…
I am a few weeks post-retirement. Having written thank you notes and completed urgent home projects, I swing in a hammock at our currently fire-threatened cabin north of Winthrop, Wash., and reflect. I feel like a young boy while freely flipping pages of a hand-scribed picture book, The Principles of Uncertainty, by Maira Kalman. She…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Providing more care than necessary may work to lower a doctor’s risk of being accused of malpractice, suggests a new U.S. study. Although the results can’t prove extra expenditures are due to defensive medicine, the researchers found that doctors in Florida who provided the most costly care between 2000 and 2009 were…
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters)—Backers of a referendum aimed at reducing the cost of prescription drugs in California said Wednesday that they had gathered more than enough signatures to place their measure on the November 2016 ballot in the most populous U.S. state. The measure by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation would require the state to pay no…
(Reuters Health)—Some health insurance plans sold on the Affordable Care Act‘s federal marketplace may not provide reasonable access to medical specialists, new research suggests. Under the act, also known as Obamacare, the federal marketplace offers subsidized private health insurance to consumers in states that didn’t establish their own health insurance exchanges. About one in seven…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Even doctors and nurses don’t always follow the healthy lifestyle choices they recommend for patients to reduce the risk of medical problems, such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes, a U.S. study suggests. Although rates of these conditions appeared lower among healthcare workers than other people, the diseases were still common. They…
A brief has been filed with the U.S. Supreme Court that, if the court decides to hear the case, could have wide-ranging implications for online medical care and the limits of a physician’s First Amendment right to free speech. Medical Advice Via e-Mail Institute for Justice Senior Attorney Jeff Rowes filed the brief at the…
On any Thursday from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., you can find Robert H. Shmerling, MD, playing tag, basketball or even roughhousing with a group of children at Second Step, a transitional living program that offers victims of domestic violence in the Boston area a safe place to live and opportunities to go back to…