Recognizing that gaps often occur in the transition process for young adults as they transition from pediatric to adult healthcare, in particular for youth with special healthcare needs, the American College of Physicians’ (ACP’s) Council of Subspecialty Societies (CSS), of which the ACR is a member, initiated a project and engaged several medical specialty organizations…
The ACR has been at the forefront of helping rheumatologists meet practice demands, including federal reporting requirements. The first registry that helped meet these requirements was the Rheumatology Clinical Registry (RCR), and it facilitated quality reporting, but required manual entry of required data. More recently, ACR has contracted with FIGmd to create a tool that…
Can We Stay Forever Young? May your heart always be joyful And may your song always be sung May you stay forever young Forever Young —Bob Dylan Beneath the rubric of orphan diseases reside some rare conditions and others that are extraordinarily uncommon. These are the diseases that most physicians either never to get to…
(Reuters Health)—In states that expanded either their Medicaid programs or private insurance options for low-income Americans, beneficiaries used more outpatient and preventive care and less emergency care. They also had better subjective overall health, compared with low-income residents of states with no expanded coverage. All states participate in Medicaid, a partnership with the federal government…
Medicare and other insurers are using patient satisfaction to determine provider payment. But according to one expert, rheumatologists who look at their practice with a critical eye, listen and ask their patients the right questions may improve their patient relationships and their practice…
The ACR will seek Congressional action if the Medicare Part B demonstration project proposed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is not significantly altered by the agency. Today, Medicare Part B generally pays physicians and hospital outpatient departments the average sales price of a drug, plus a 6% add-on, minus reductions required…
In 2013, a collaboration began to advance the training and assessment of fellows. The result: A uniform set of educational reporting milestones for all internal medicine subspecialties was developed. Key stakeholders were then asked to develop a list of entrustable professional activities (EPAs), a set of responsibilities any specialist should be able to perform, for their subspecialties. The ACR’s Next Accreditation System working group developed 14 EPAs for rheumatology…
Eugene Kissin, MD, says the use of musculoskeletal ultrasound can help rheumatologists diagnose and treat disease. Getting the proper training is critical. USSONAR is a training resource that can help…
The FDA is strengthening its warning that canagliflozin and dapagliflozin may increase the risk for acute kidney injury in some patients. Also, the FDA has issued a warning that patients should not exceed recommended doses of loperamide due to increased risks of serious cardiac events…
Ethical issues that arise in the average rheumatology practice and in clinical research are often straightforward. The AMA Code of Medical Ethics and the Office Practice and Procedures Manual offer useful information.1 In research, the Protocol and Investigators Agreement spells out who you can enroll and how the trial must be conducted. But still—even when…