With more than 100 members, including rheumatologists, physician assistants and nurse practitioners, the NCRA is a dynamic, member-owned organization.


With more than 100 members, including rheumatologists, physician assistants and nurse practitioners, the NCRA is a dynamic, member-owned organization.

Allison Plitman |
The field of rheumatology is leading the way in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ new MIPS Value Pathways with rheumatology-specific quality measures and improvement activities.

We are fortunate to have clinical practice guidelines for the management of psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis (PsA) from multiple organizations to help navigate today’s rapidly evolving therapeutic landscape. We are further fortunate to have multiple specialists to manage these conditions: rheumatologists and dermatologists. However, multiple guidelines, multiple drugs and multiple specialists can create a paradox…

Sarah D. Bayefsky, MD, Kimberly DeQuattro, MD, & Rebecca E. Sadun, MD, PhD |
Approximately 50% of young adult patients with childhood-onset rheumatic diseases become lost to follow-up within the first year of transferring to adult rheumatology care, mirroring the statistics of other subspecialties.1,2 One of the challenges cited most consistently by young adult patients and their families relates to differences between rheumatology care delivery in the pediatric and…

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are the focus of a new ACR/ARP subcommittee of the Collaborative Initiatives (COIN) Special Committee. The 13-member group will explore strategies to increase diversity in the rheumatology workforce pipeline and reduce implicit bias in such organizational processes as speaker recruitment and abstract review. “There is a new awareness at the…

Vaidehi R. Chowdhary, MD, & Jane E. Dee, BA, MALS |
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated wide disparities that exist in the U.S. healthcare system. During the pandemic, the clinical practice in the Section of Rheumatology, Allergy & Immunology at Yale School of Medicine (YSM), New Haven, Conn., rapidly pivoted from face-to-face visits to telehealth to keep our patients and providers safe. Many patients quickly adapted and…

Mary Choy, PharmD, BCGP, FASHP |
About 30% of patients with psoriasis have psoriatic arthritis (PsA), a complex, multi-faceted, chronic, inflammatory musculoskeletal and skin disease for which the treatment has changed considerably over the past few years.1 Biosimilars and other new drugs have become a therapeutic turning point for many patients suffering from rheumatic illnesses, including PsA. The treatment of PsA…
Reuters Staff |
Reuters)—Severe COVID-19 may trick the immune system into producing autoantibodies that have the potential to eventually attack healthy tissue and cause inflammatory diseases, researchers warned in a paper published in Nature Communications.1 They found autoantibodies in blood samples from roughly 50% of the 147 COVID-19 patients they studied, but in fewer than 15% of 41…

Increased cardiovascular (CV) risk in patients with rheumatic disease is old news. Over the past decade, a multitude of studies have demonstrated elevated CV risk in a variety of conditions: systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis (PsA), to name a few. The risk in patients with rheumatic disease seems to be linked to…

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