On May 20, ACR representatives held more than 100 video meetings with Congressional leaders about the need to reform step therapy and alleviate pediatric workforce shortages. You can still add your voice by asking your members of Congress to support the Safe Step Act and fund the Pediatric Subspecialty Loan Repayment Program.
Sequestration, workforce issues and step therapy reform are just some of the areas in which the ACR’s activities, via the Government Affairs Committee and member action, have made a positive difference for rheumatology practitioners.
Pegloticase is safe and effective to treat patients with refractory gout who are undergoing dialysis, according to recently presented research.
The Budget Control Act of 2011 cut Medicare physician payments by 2% across the board. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, signed into law in 2020, suspended this sequester (i.e., a cut in government spending) between May 1 and Dec. 31, 2020. In the Consolidated Appropriations Act, signed into law in December…
The ACR, in concert with the Vasculitis Foundation, released three new vasculitis guidelines online first in July, with a fourth slated for publication by the end of the year. These are the first ever to be produced and endorsed by the ACR and the Vasculitis Foundation. Although most of the recommendations are conditional, due to…
FDA News Release—On April 16, saying that alternative monoclonal antibody therapies authorized to treat patients with COVID-19 remain available, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration revoked the emergency use authorization (EUA) that allowed for the investigational monoclonal antibody therapy bamlanivimab, when administered alone, to be used for the treatment of mild-to-moderate COVID-19 in adults and…
AMA Honors Mark Andrejeski with Lifetime Achievement Award In November 2020, the American Medical Association (AMA) presented Mark Andrejeski, the recently retired executive vice president of the ACR, with its Medical Executive Lifetime Achievement Award. The award honors a medical association executive who has contributed substantially to the goals and ideals of the medical profession….
Clinically amyopathic dermatomyositis (CADM), a rare subset of dermatomyositis (DM), is an autoimmune disease characterized by cutaneous findings of typical DM without evidence of myositis. Childhood presentation of CADM is rare, and not many studies describe the epidemiology of juvenile CADM.1,2 Although lung disease is rare among patients with juvenile DM, a few reports have…
As we emerge from the grips of a global pandemic, we are taking this opportunity to pause and reflect on the ARP and what our division brings to the care of our patients. I found the words of Amanda Gordon’s inaugural reading of her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” inspirational and instructive for our past,…
ACR CONVERGENCE 2020—Tiphanie Phillips Vogel, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics and internal medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, moderated the session on COPA syndrome, which drew 324 attendees on a Sunday morning. This rare genetic cause of immune dysregulation can present like anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA) associated vasculitis, lupus, lupus nephritis or rheumatoid…