A healthcare practice is a business, and it must operate like one to survive, medical practice management consultant Owen Dahl, FACHE, CHBC, LSSMBB, reminded attendees during the Practice Matters: Navigate A Path to Success! premeeting course.

While telemedicine is a convenient option for both patients and providers to improve patient health, the field still has many rules and restrictions prohibiting it from reaching its optimal potential.

This year’s Rheumatology Research Foundation Lectureship to Honor Herbert Kaplan, MD, on Monday morning will look at the evolution of osteoarthritis from an inevitable result of aging and injury to a chronic condition that can be managed effectively for many patients.

MAS is an under-recognized complication of rheumatic illnesses that can progress quickly to multi-organ failure and death. A similar condition, known as secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, has seen treatment options expand greatly in recent years. A new crop of clinical trials may produce additional agents over the next few years.

The largely exploratory phase one of the AMP lupus nephritis project identified a novel interferon pathway that might be targeted using biologics that have already been approved for indications in other diseases.

The session will include perspectives from an ear, nose, and throat specialist and a rheumatologist as they explore surgical and medical approaches to these issues and discuss when a multidisciplinary approach is needed.

Etanercept transformed the treatment of RA by blocking TNF, but even more targeted agents might be more effective with greater safety. That’s the thought behind the Accelerating Medicines Partnership program to unravel the molecular action of rheumatoid arthritis at the cellular level.

It’s tough to predict the course of rheumatologic disease, but a new statistical approach using multi-state models can help.

The first-ever ACR guideline being developed for the management of granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA), microscopic polyangiitis (MPA), and eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA) provides useful recommendations for managing these complex conditions in clinical practice.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and joint diseases such as spondylarthritis (SpA) are familiar comorbid conditions. But comorbid does not necessarily mean co-treatment, at least not with the rapidly developing armamentaria available to rheumatologists and gastroenterologists.