Rheumatology Specialist Consults, Autoimmune Workup Support, and Care Coordination

> Product boundary: CareScreen closes screening care gaps: eligibility from the chart/EHR, in-clinic capture (devices and questionnaires), async specialist interpretation, and structured results back to the PCP EMR. ConsultBridge is a separate FabrixMed product for live provider-to-provider specialty consults. CareScreen does not require ConsultBridge. Referral recommendations from screening are documented in the EMR; the PCP handles next steps through normal clinical workflow. Recommended URL: /by-specialty/rheumatology Rheumatology is not usually an emergency-device specialty. It is a complexity specialty. Patients present with joint pain, swelling, inflammatory arthritis concern, abnormal autoimmune labs, lupus concern, vasculitis concern, gout, chronic pain overlap, steroid questions, biologic monitoring, medication toxicity concerns, and unclear referral needs across primary care, FQHCs, rural clinics, urgent care, SNFs, correctional facilities, ACOs, CINs, health plans, and community health systems. The problem is that rheumatology access is often slow, while frontline clinicians still need to decide:

FabrixMed helps healthcare organizations create a structured rheumatology access layer with independent FabrixMed products (each specialty may use CareScreen, ConsultBridge, or both — no required handoff between them):

CareScreen and ConsultBridge independently support rheumatology concerns to the right specialist pathway — no product handoff required.

FabrixMed supports rheumatology workflows through both ConsultBridge and CareScreen.

ConsultBridge helps treating clinicians submit structured rheumatology questions to qualified rheumatology providers. A rheumatology consult request can include:

The rheumatology provider reviews the submitted information and returns recommendations through the platform. The treating clinician remains responsible for bedside assessment, diagnosis, treatment, prescribing, monitoring, emergency escalation, transfer decisions, and final patient management.

A primary care clinician has a patient with joint pain, fatigue, rash, abnormal ANA, elevated inflammatory markers, or nonspecific symptoms. The question is not always “refer to rheumatology.” The question may be:

With ConsultBridge:

• is this clinically meaningful?
• what history matters?
• what labs are missing?
• is this urgent?
• can this be monitored locally?
• should this be routed elsewhere?
• what should be documented before referral?

Correctional facilities face barriers around specialty scheduling, outside transport, medication continuity, and monitoring. Patients may have lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, chronic joint pain, immunosuppressive therapy needs, or abnormal labs. With FabrixMed:

This supports rheumatology access while reducing avoidable movement when clinically appropriate.

A patient is on steroids, methotrexate, biologics, or other immunosuppressive therapies. CareScreen can track:

ConsultBridge can route medication complexity questions to rheumatology when needed. This supports safer chronic disease monitoring without making FabrixMed the prescribing entity.

• medication list
• lab monitoring status
• infection-risk flags
• missed follow-up
• vaccination/prevention tasks where configured
• specialty follow-up status
• care team owner

Traditional telemedicine is often a video visit. Rheumatology often needs more than a visit. Effective rheumatology support depends on:

ConsultBridge helps route the specialist question and clinical context. CareScreen helps track symptoms, labs, medication monitoring, and follow-up gaps. CareScreen and ConsultBridge each support rheumatology access — as independent products (no integrated handoff).

ConsultBridge and CareScreen can create value by helping organizations:

Rheumatologists can receive better-organized cases and help redirect cases that do not require rheumatology.

Correctional facilities, SNFs, ALFs, and LTC facilities can access rheumatology input before defaulting to delayed outside referral or transport.

Red-flag workflows can help route concerning vasculitis, giant cell arteritis, infection, severe systemic symptoms, or organ involvement to urgent pathways.

Health systems, ACOs, CINs, and health plans can extend rheumatology expertise across more sites without requiring every location to staff rheumatologists on-site.