Forty-five years ago, a computer engineer in Boston sent an electronic message between two computers some 10 feet apart. It took another 10 years or so before the electronic mail message was dubbed email—a term now, perhaps, more ubiquitous than any other in the lexicon of modern communications. Despite the seemingly definitive place email communication…
With limited time to spend away from your practice, you can still have an impact on issues important to Advancing Rheumatology! Below are several ways to have your voice heard, without ever leaving town. Set Up a Local Meeting with Your Elected Officials Every member of Congress has at least one local office in the…
More than 10 years ago, New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman opined an old-world perspective that the world is, in fact, flat. In an article published on April 3, 2005, Mr. Friedman contended that “Individuals must, and can, now ask: Where do I fit into the global competition and opportunities of the day, and how…
After 60 years as a rheumatologist, Richard Panush, MD, has a unique perspective on the future of medical education, innovation and equality within our healthcare system. For all the recent changes and those to come, he says, “Medicine and rheumatology will be just fine—if not better.”
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Aggregated results from three studies of patients with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis show that Eli Lilly’s injectable drug ixekizumab can completely resolve the plaques in about one third of cases after 12 weeks of treatment. And with continued therapy every four weeks, at least half maintained or attained complete resolution of…
New research confirms that patients with rheumatoid arthritis who respond to treatment experience an increase in cholesterol levels, including total cholesterol, LDL-C and HDL-C levels. However, the use of triple therapy may be important for understanding this association and mitigating its risk…
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)—Newly identified biomarkers could aid in the diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and help guide therapy, Canada-based researchers report. Accurately differentiating between Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) is important for ensuring early and appropriate treatment. However, the conditions can’t be reliably distinguished based on clinical symptoms, site of disease,…
CHICAGO (Reuters)—A letter arrives in the mail with this opening line: “We are writing to let you know how you can get help paying your Medicare costs.” Your fraud detector probably goes on high alert—the mailboxes of retirees routinely are stuffed with bogus come-ons. But this letter is no scam. More than 2 million seniors…
(Reuters Health)—Technology makes it possible for patients to access medical records online, but a thicket of legal issues may still keep people from always seeing everything in their chart, some doctors say. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) gives U.S. patients the right to access their medical records and control who else has…
Take the challenge. B—No. Although the documentation states the patient arrived at the clinic at 8:15 a.m. and left the clinic at 10:55 a.m., it does not document the actual start and stop times of the infusion. According to CPT, when reporting codes for which infusion time is a factor, use the actual time over…