VIDEO: What primary care physicians should consider when treating patients with RA

Editor’s note: This is a previously posted video, and the below is an automatically generated transcript to be used for informational purposes. Please notify cperla@healio.com if there are concerns regarding accuracy of the transcription.

The role of the non-rheumatologist in caring for a patient with RA. Again, I think it's initially recognizing someone who might have inflammatory arthritis, helping them get access to a rheumatologist who might be able to confirm the diagnosis and tailor the therapy.

But then in the chronic care of a patient with RA, I always like to let my primary care colleagues know about the increased risk of cardiovascular disease, the increased risk of lung disease, the increased risk of other comorbid conditions that primary care doctors are expert at treating and recognizing, and probably do a better job than I do at finding those conditions and initiating therapy, or at least bringing them back to my attention. So I can think of a recent patient who developed a cough in the setting of their RA.

They were not on methotrexate, but they were on some other treatments. And the primary care doc asked, "Could this be related to RA?" And it provoked, you know, a high resolution CAT scan. And unfortunately for the patient, we diagnosed interstitial lung disease. But this was important that the primary care doc was aware that this was something that could happen in the setting of RA and did a great job referring back to myself and then a pulmonologist for further workup.