With telemedicine platforms and Zoom calls, technology is playing a large role in how rheumatology fellows are seeing patients and participating in lectures and conferences…

Catherine Kolonko |
With telemedicine platforms and Zoom calls, technology is playing a large role in how rheumatology fellows are seeing patients and participating in lectures and conferences…
Mike Fillon |
ATLANTA—Research into possible genetic drivers of the axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA), including the role of the genetic marker HLA-B27, is advancing, John D. Reveille, MD, professor and vice chair of medicine at the University of Texas McGovern Medical School, Houston, told attendees at the 2019 ACR/ARP Annual Meeting. Dr. Reveille delivered the Philip Hench, MD, Memorial…
Mike Fillon |
ATLANTA—The rheumatology profession faces a severe shortfall of practitioners that threatens the ability to address patients’ needs. “Even if we doubled the number of positions for fellowship training, we wouldn’t meet the increasing demand on our workforce,” said Marcy B. Bolster, MD, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston, and director of the…
When I first met Ms. Miller (name changed), quite frankly, I couldn’t wait to get out of the room. I’m sure she couldn’t either. A woman in her 40s with systemic lupus erythematosus, poorly controlled asthma and fibromyalgia, she seemed to have every conceivable symptom. And, worse than that, due to a long history of…
Take the challenge. Answer: No, if billed as incident-to for the NP. Note: The patient’s current insurance carrier is Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBS of MA). Under BCBS of MA, nurse practitioners and nurse practitioner primary care providers are not allowed to perform or interpret radiology services. Therefore, the physician would have to…
Micah Yu, MD, Anna Lafian, DO, & Christina Downey, MD |
Imagine leaving the hospital after suffering a heart attack without being treated for hypertension or being started on a beta blocker. What would we think of the hospital where patients are never educated about the relationship between treating hypertension and reducing myocardial infarction and stroke risk? Unfortunately, this happens every day with osteoporosis and fractures…
In the past decade, the treat-to-target concept has gained broad acceptance. Both the ACR and European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) management recommendations include adding biologic therapies to the treatment regimen for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients who do not sufficiently respond to methotrexate monotherapy. “What EULAR says is that if [methotrexate use fails], you should essentially…
Dominick Sudano, MD, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona and rheumatologist at Banner University Medical Center, Tucson, Ariz., knows how tough it is for patients living in remote areas to obtain a rheumatology consultation. “It’s not unusual for patients living in rural areas of Arizona to wait four to six months for a…
Lisa Rapaport |
(Reuters Health)—Physician Compare, a U.S. website created to help patients find high-quality doctors, is missing so much information on individual providers that it may not be helpful, a new study suggests. Quality reporting has been a work in progress for almost three decades since a landmark 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine, ‘To Err…
Lisa Rapaport |
(Reuters Health)—Patients who have real-time video visits with their primary care providers instead of in-person exams are generally satisfied with the convenience and quality of their checkups, a new study suggests. There’s a lot about these telemedicine visits that can sound appealing: no need to get stuck in traffic on the way to the doctor;…