PHILADELPHIA—Since March 2020, the world has been turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. Rheumatologists must understand how to best protect and treat their patients with autoimmune conditions at risk for infection due to immunosuppressive therapy. At ACR Convergence 2022, the session titled, Latest COVID and Rheumatic Disease Therapies: What You Need to Know, provided…
COVID-19: Strategies to Protect Adult & Pediatric Patients
An ACR Convergence 2022 session provided practical updates on ways to best protect pediatric & adult patients with rheumatic disease from COVID-19.
Patients Living with Chronic Illness
At ACR Convergence 2022, three women with rheumatic diseases discuss the profound life changes that the diseases wrought and ways they’ve found to cope.
Clinical Rheumatology Year in Review—2022
In this overview of clinical updates in rheumatology in the last year, high-impact studies were discussed, including the GLORIA, ORAL Surveillance and MIRROR trials.
A Shot of Wisdom: Vaccinations in Patients with Rheumatic Disease
PHILADELPHIA—The treatment of rheumatic diseases is often a double-edged sword: immunosuppressive regimens can be very effective in reducing disease activity, but the cost of such treatments may be seen in the form of increased risk of infection. At ACR Convergence 2022, the session titled ACR Guidelines for Vaccination in Patients with Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Diseases…
Patients Fight Against Dark Days & Find Ways to Cope
PHILADELPHIA—Amy Gietzen started feeling the pain when she was 19. Her forearms, elbows, wrists and fingers were constantly swollen and sensitive. Six months later, she saw a doctor and was diagnosed with systemic diffuse scleroderma—a particularly hard-to-manage rheumatic disease with wide-ranging effects. Ms. Gietzen, who spoke at ACR Convergence 2022 and is a public speaker,…
Rheumatic Disease Research in Indigenous Populations
This ACR Convergence 2022 session focused on ways to improve health equity in Indigenous populations.
Evolution of Medicare’s Merit-Based Incentive Payment System: MIPS Value Pathways
In November, the CMS finalized 12 MIPS Value Pathways (MVP) in the Quality Payment Program, including a rheumatology MVP. In 2023, clinicians can opt to report via traditional MIPS, the rheumatology MVP or both.
Understaffed, Over-Scrutinized & Feeling Powerless? ACR Advocacy Can Help
Elizabeth “Blair” Solow, MD, MSc, and Angus Worthing, MD, FACP, FACR, described the top political issues affecting rheumatology now and how ACR members can work toward practices and policies that help us better care for patients.
Psoriatic Arthritis: Advances in Therapeutics, Imaging & More Presented at ACR Convergence 2022
PHILADELPHIA—Selecting my top 10 picks for abstracts in psoriatic arthritis (PsA) at the ACR Convergence 2022 meeting was not easy because there was a great deal to review and learn from the 139 abstracts submitted to the meeting. I focused first and foremost on advances in therapeutics that encompassed both new and approved therapeutics, novel…