Webinar: ACR/CHEST ILD Guidelines in Practice| Video: All the Lonely People

An official publication of the ACR and the ARP serving rheumatologists and rheumatology professionals

Cracking, Popping Joints May Foretell Arthritis

Carolyn Crist  |  

(Reuters Health)—Grating, cracking or popping sounds around joints may predict future arthritis, especially in the knees, according to a recent U.S. study. Among thousands of people with no knee pain who were followed for three years, one quarter had noisy knees yet they made up three quarters of the cases of symptomatic knee arthritis that…

Pricey Arthritis Drug Effective in Small Fraction of Ulcerative Colitis Cases

Gene Emery  |  

NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Pfizer’s expensive arthritis drug tofacitinib has been shown to produce a remission in nearly 1 in 5 patients with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, but long-term remission persists in fewer than half of those cases. In a series of studies published in the May 4 New England Journal of Medicine, researchers reported…

U.S. Democrats Criticize Senate’s All-Male Healthcare Group

John Whitesides & Sarah N. Lynch  |  

WASHINGTON (Reuters)—U.S. Democrats on Sunday criticized the lack of women on a working group in the Republican-led Senate that will craft a plan to pass legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare. As the Senate begins to wrestle with a Republican healthcare bill narrowly approved by the House of Representatives last week, senators questioned why the…

Pregabalin Is Ineffective for Sciatica

  |  

A recent small-scale study examined the efficacy of pregabalin in the treatment of neuropathic pain caused by sciatica, as well as its associated low back pain. Researchers found the treatment did not reduce leg pain better than placebo and resulted in more adverse events…

Republican Moves on Obamacare Cloud Insurers’ 2018 Plans

Caroline Humer  |  

NEW YORK (Reuters)—U.S. Republicans may be moving ahead with a vote to repeal Obamacare, but the uncertainty about what a national health law may look like is clouding insurers’ decisions on whether to stay in the individual insurance market in 2018. Republicans do plan to vote on the U.S. House of Representatives bill, the American…

Arthritis Awareness Month: 5 Ways to Get Involved

  |  

In early March, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a new report showing that the number of Americans living with arthritis is at an all-time high. According to the report, 54 million Americans now live with arthritis, and approximately 79 million will have arthritis by 2040. This stark picture comes at a…

Speaking Out for IPAB Repeal

  |  

On May 11, ACR President Sharad Lakhanpal, MBBS, MD, and other College members will be in Washington, D.C., to speak in support of proposed legislation or a joint resolution that would repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). IPAB Defined In an attempt to control future Medicare expenditures, one element of the Patient Protection and…

CMS Notifying Clinicians of Their MIPS Status

  |  

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) that process Medicare Part B claims have begun informing providers of their participation status in the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). This information is coming in the form of hard-copy letters that started mailing in late April and will continue…

Institute for Clinical Economic Review Final Report on RA Treatments

  |  

On April 7, 2017, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) published its final report, titled, Targeted Immune Modulators for Rheumatoid Arthritis: Effectiveness & Value.1 The stated objective of the report was to assess the comparative clinical effectiveness of the targeted immune modulators (TIMs) used to treat patients with moderate to severe active rheumatoid…