In the first scene of the Broadway stage adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, young Scout contemplates two words she has heard in the courtroom: “All rise,” and wonders if they really are meant to elevate the minds of all those present for the proceedings. That instruction—“All rise”—serves as a leitmotif throughout the…
I knew I was about to be schooled. That’s what I thought when I first started to read the Twitter feed of Erin D. Michos, MD, MHS, an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. I have a Twitter account, but as a general rule, I use it…
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters)—The future of Obamacare could be at stake on Tuesday when a coalition of Democratic-led states and House of Representatives urge a federal appeals court to overturn a Texas judge’s ruling that the U.S. healthcare reform law is unconstitutional. Republicans have repeatedly tried to repeal Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act (ACA), since…
Corrections to reimbursement system errors with Aetna and a Medicare contractor demonstrate the latest wins for all providers by the ACR’s Insurance Subcommittee. But the committee remains hard at work advocating for rheumatologists on several fronts.
A number of bills have been introduced in the 116th Congress to mitigate the impact of treatment and drug costs on U.S. patients. The ACR has reviewed the bills and supports those that most closely align with its positions on access to care.
The clinical sessions at the 2019 ACR/ARP Annual Meeting feature cutting-edge techniques in rheumatology and enable attendees to hone new skills and explore medically relevant topics…
Machine learning, immunology, the metabolism—are just a few of the topics addressed during…
In April 2019, the Rheumatology Association of Nevada (RAN) hosted its fourth annual meeting. “We had the largest-ever number of attendees,” says RAN President Tim Kelly, MD, a rheumatologist in Las Vegas. Launched in 2016, RAN continues to grow, and Dr. Kelly hopes to see the statewide organization do more. “We want to expand our…
We have often heard it said that opportunity arises from challenges. Challenge, of course, is really just a polite way of saying problem—and for our patients, problems abound when it comes to obtaining timely and affordable access to the rheumatologic care they need. Access in this context has many meanings: There is access to life-changing…
In August 2018, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it would permit Medicare Advantage plans to use step therapy for Part B drugs, with a lookback period of just 108 days.1 On May 16, 2019, however, the CMS issued a final rule that extends the lookback period for Part B therapies to 365…