ACR Convergence 2025| Video: Rheum for Everyone, Episode 26—Ableism

An official publication of the ACR and the ARP serving rheumatologists and rheumatology professionals

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Rheumatology Coding Corner Question: Prolonged Service without Direct Patient Contact, Part 2

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An established, 66-year-old male patient is seen in the office for a follow-up visit for his fibromyalgia. The physician makes the decision to prescribe venlafaxine for anxiety and depression, and gabapentin for nerve pain. After the visit, the physician informs his medical assistant (MA) to contact the patient’s insurance carrier because venlafaxine requires a prior…

Fellows’ Forum Case Report: Autoinflammatory Diseases and Roles of Genetic, Molecular Testing

Mahjabeen Haq, DO, L. Manuela Marinescu, MD, & Qingping Yao, MD, PhD  |  

A 51-year-old Caucasian female was referred by a local rheumatologist to the Center of Autoinflammatory Diseases at Stony Brook University, N.Y., for an unusual disease presentation. The patient had had recurrent polyarthritis, fever and rash for the previous three years. She described having a migratory polyarthritis affecting the shoulders, knees, ankles and bilateral forefoot, with…

New Jersey Sues Insys as Opioid Maker Settles with Massachusetts

Nate Raymond  |  

BOSTON (Reuters)—New Jersey on Thursday accused Insys Therapeutics Inc of engaging in a fraudulent scheme to boost sales of a fentanyl-based cancer pain drug, as Massachusetts announced a $500,000 settlement with the drugmaker to resolve similar allegations. The lawsuit by New Jersey Attorney General Christopher Porrino accused Insys of illegally directing its sales force to…

Opioid Use in U.S. RA Patients

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Nationally, opioid use and addiction are drawing increased scrutiny. An increase in the number of overdoses and addiction to heroin and prescription pain relievers in the past decade has been attributed in part to increased prescribing of opioids for the treatment of pain by physicians. National trends suggest the rate of opioid prescribing plateaued in…

Mind-Body Techniques for Pain Management

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CHICAGO—Delia Chiaramonte, MD, associate director of education at the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, presented the newest thinking on pain to a gathering of rheumatologists at the ACR’s State-of-the-Art Clinical Symposium in April. She began by explaining that pain is more than nociception. Nociception stimulates nerves to…

Rheumatologist Dr. Santosh Bhusal Shares Insights in Move from Fellowship to Practice

Santosh Bhusal, MD, with Terence W. Starz, MD, on behalf of the ARHP Practice Committee  |  

“I was hoping for good news, but now I am worried,” was the response of a 29-year-old patient when I suggested an oncology referral. He was four months into treatment of dermatomyositis and had experienced significant improvement of his muscle strength, CPK levels and interstitial pneumonitis, but a follow-up CT scan showed that his spleen…

Rheumatologists Concerned High Healthcare Costs May Encourage Patients to Forgo, Delay Treatment

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While members of Congress debate healthcare legislation, rheumatologists say many of their patients struggle to afford everything from generic drugs to insurance copayments for physical therapy. “It’s a mess. The cost of prescriptions and the rationale for those rising costs in the U.S. right now—it’s just a mess,” says James R. O’Dell, MD, Stokes-Shackleford Professor of…

ARHP President Dr. Afton L. Hassett’s Rise from Annual Meeting Attendee to Leadership Role

Erin Latimer Meadows  |  

Current ARHP President Afton L. Hassett, PsyD—a clinical psychologist and an associate research scientist in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Michigan—attended her first ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in 1999. Dr. Hassett submitted an abstract to the meeting describing her dissertation research exploring the role of pain and depression in rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. It…