SAN DIEGO—In just two decades, precision medicine has gone from futuristic concept to realistic toolbox for clinical physicians. At the 2017 ACR Clinical Research Conference on Nov. 3, the Precision Medicine in Rheumatic Diseases: Hopes and Challenges lecture featured rheumatologists and experts on genetics, genomics, pharmacogenetics and big data who spoke about the latest research…
SAN DIEGO—At the ACR/ARHP 2017 Annual Meeting Nov. 3–8, a session on how to promote shared decision making with patients highlighted the role of the multidisciplinary professional team. And perhaps just as importantly, it noted the importance of providers recognizing their own implicit biases, which can get in the way of shared decision making. Presenters…
SAN DIEGO—Top researchers gathered for a review course at the start of the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in November to describe new research, their own treatment strategies and new ways of thinking about an array of rheumatic diseases. Here are the highlights: Raynaud’s & Other Digit Problems When a patient walks into your clinic with…
Take the challenge. CPT codes: 20611-LT, 20611-RT, J7326x2 or 20611, 20611-50, J7326x2 ICD-10: M17.0 Coding Rationale The CPT code 20611 is for an arthrocentesis, aspiration and/or injection, major joint or bursa (e.g., shoulder, hip, knee or subacromial bursa with ultrasound guidance, with permanent recording and reporting). The code is billed twice because this was a…
Persistent Challenges Sometimes the challenges seem neverending. In addition to the rigors of our daily lives as rheumatology health professionals—growing administrative burdens, increasing pressures to fund research and achieve balance in family and personal lives—we face a growing number of challenges related to the rapidly escalating prices of rheumatology treatments. Even more unfortunately, these costs…
4 Patients in 4 Weeks Baltimore is a little over two hours away from Richmond, Va., by car. I know this now because I recently drove to Richmond to attend a memorial service. I drove in silence. Music made me sleepy, and I could not bear to listen to another iteration of how we are…
The year was 1991. It was my first Tuesday as a rheumatology fellow at the University of Pittsburgh’s Presbyterian Hospital. Navigating a maze of buildings and hallways, I delivered myself to the entrance to the scleroderma clinic. Running late and not knowing whether there was a separate entrance for staff, I clicked open the door….
In the ever-changing healthcare delivery landscape, the ACR continues to go to work on behalf of its members to ensure public policies encourage delivery of high-quality rheumatology care and treatment. With stepped-up efforts to meet with federal administrative and Congressional representatives, and broadened coalitions of partners to strengthen advocacy for key issues important to the…
(Reuters)—Five opioid manufacturers, including OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP, have paid more than $10 million to advocacy groups and doctors tied to them, many of whom amplified industry messages supporting the use of the painkillers, a U.S. Senate report said on Monday.1 The report, released by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), says groups who received the…
Novel research has linked cold environments—with snow, ice and overall frigid conditions—to an increased risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis. This research has many rheumatologists eager for more research that could aid patients and further the understanding of the disease…