Enabling rheumatology practices to use complex administration codes for biologic drugs is critical for maintaining patient access to essential therapies.

Enabling rheumatology practices to use complex administration codes for biologic drugs is critical for maintaining patient access to essential therapies.
Last year, in Texas, they had no room to breathe. Texas has 301 designated trauma centers equipped to provide intensive care, 200 of which can care for at least four critically ill patients. In August 2021, 75 of these hospitals reported having no available beds in their intensive care units. Zero. This was due, in…
Joseph Cantrell, JD |
States increasingly take the lead on issues critical to our members and the field of rheumatology, including copay accumulator bans, white bagging restrictions, prior authorization and drug pricing.
In a study, patients with new-onset polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) who were treated with subcutaneous tocilizumab were more likely to achieve sustained, glucocorticoid-free remission than patients who received placebo.
Emily A. Johnson, JD |
Healthcare law is ever changing, particularly with regard to price transparency. Key healthcare leaders and stakeholders have long argued for more stringent price transparency regulations in an effort to increase patient awareness regarding the cost of a hospital item or service prior to receiving the service. Such information is anticipated to enable patients to take…
Lisa L. Korn, MD, PhD, Mina L. Xu, MD, & Cristina Brunet, MD |
Consulting rheumatologists often assess patients with atypical clinical presentations for the possibility of an underlying rheumatic disease. Inflammatory syndromes that are not clearly rheumatic in nature can be particularly challenging to diagnose. Here, we share the case of a young woman with a long-standing undiagnosed illness and highly elevated inflammatory markers, and describe the evaluation…
Although more than 189,300,000 eligible Americans are fully vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 as of Oct. 18, 2021, vaccine hesitancy persists.1 The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), citing data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey collected between May 26 and June 7, 2021, reports that in some U.S. counties—particularly in the Southeast…
Renée Bacher |
For decades, rheumatologist Cindy Flower, MD, accumulated images of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in her patients, as well as clinical vignettes to use in teaching at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Bridgetown, Barbados. For decades, she has wanted to do something wide-reaching with these materials, sharing information from her practice and her mentor, the late Prof….
Patrice Fusillo |
During ACR Convergence 2021 in early November, the ACR honored a group of individuals who have made significant contributions to rheumatology research, education and patient care, announcing the recipients of the ACR’s 2021 Awards of Distinction, as well as the group of Distinguished Fellows. recognized for their contributions. Three pediatric rheumatologists and one pediatric fellow…
Nilasha Ghosh, MD, MS, & Anne R. Bass, MD |
Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), such as anti-programmed cell-death 1/programmed death-ligand 1 (anti-PD-1/PD-L1) or anti-CTL-associated protein (anti-CTLA-4), have dramatically changed the treatment of advanced cancers over the past decade. ICIs block T cell inhibition, thus increasing the anti-tumor immune response. ICIs are used not only for metastatic cancer, but also as adjuvant treatment for some stage…