Certolizumab pegol has been approved in Canada for treating adults with plaque psoriasis. The U.K. has also issued its final guidance for the treatment’s use…

Certolizumab pegol has been approved in Canada for treating adults with plaque psoriasis. The U.K. has also issued its final guidance for the treatment’s use…
Shervin Assassi, MD, MS, was the child of two physicians. His mother practiced obstetrics, and his father was a trauma surgeon. It gave him an appreciation for the hard work that goes into medicine and a fascination for joints. He developed an interest in immunology while in medical school. “It was natural for me to…
The evaluation and management (E/M) code set in the American Medical Association’s Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) book lists descriptors, as well as typical times for patient visits. These times are averages of how long it takes a physician to complete all components of a visit at each level. Because the specific times identified in the…
CHICAGO—At Hot Topics in Myositis, a session at the 2018 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting, three experts discussed new classification criteria for idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM) and offered practical primers on overlap myositis conditions and inclusion body myositis (IBM). New Myositis Classification Criteria After a 10-year development process, the new EULAR/ACR Classification Criteria for Adult and Juvenile…
Mary Choy, PharmD, BCGP, FASHP |
Over the past few years, biosimilars and other new drugs have been introduced to treat rheumatic illnesses. Some of the conditions we treat have numerous drug options, others have few or only off-label options. This series, Rheumatology Drugs at a Glance, provides streamlined information on the administration of biologic, biosimilar and other medications used to…
CHICAGO—The osteoporosis session at the 2018 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting opened with a discussion by Kenneth Saag, MD, MSc, professor of medicine at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, in which he highlighted adverse events associated with osteoporosis medications. Dr. Saag began his presentation by emphasizing that, above all, the audience should keep in mind that the…
On Feb. 13, the ACR co-sponsored Arthritis 101, its biennial arthritis advocacy lunch briefing at the U.S. Capitol, highlighting the disproportionate impact of rheumatic disease on active members of the armed forces and veterans. The event, co-sponsored by the Arthritis Foundation (AF), is part of the ACR’s effort to support inclusion of $20 million in…
CHICAGO—Suleman Bhana, MD, a rheumatologist at New York-based Crystal Run Healthcare, calls himself a “technology nerd,” but judging by his review of tech tools at the 2018 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting, you don’t have to geek out to embrace technology in your rheumatology practice. You just have to like simplicity and saving money. “We have a…
New evidence from a clinical trial of rituximab has identified the pathogenetic role of B cells in the earliest, pre-arthritis stage of autoantibody-positive RA…
Take the challenge. CPT: 20611-LT, J7325-EJ ICD-10: M17.12, E66.01, Z68.41 Coding/Billing Rationale No evaluation and management (E/M) code was added because there was no significant and/or separate identifiable reason for an E/M service to be billed with this scheduled visit for her series of injections. The joint injection was billed with ultrasound guidance due to…