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Important News about ASIPP Cuts
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As ASIPP members, we think you should know about a grave consequence of draconian cuts of 16.3% for epidurals, 25% for facet joint injections, 25% for adhesiolysis, and 16% for sacroiliac joint injections at ambulatory surgery centers starting January 1, 2017.
Many of the ASIPP members are also the owners of surgery centers or are involved in surgery center practices. Please let us know if you own a surgery center, or are significantly involved, because this will affect you financially. Please send your information or the information of any others you are aware of with ownership in surgery centers to Savannah Gold at sgold@asipp.org. Be sure to include the name of the contact person, name of the surgery center, and any other contact information
We should consider this as a departing gift from the Obama Administration to interventional pain physicians. However, with a new Administration now taking office, we have a possibility of reversing these cuts retroactively and the probability of reinstating the previous reimbursement or improving the reimbursement for 2018.
ASIPP will be assisting in this endeavor; however, the main impetus will be from the Society of Interventional Pain Management Surgery Centers (SIPMS). ASIPP will provide some revenues, as well as personnel support, but not all the revenues. This has to be raised from surgery center society members.
Please let us know your interest in pursuing such an action. Because of the required extensive and prolonged advocacy efforts at the highest levels of Congress and the Administration, our efforts will involve raising significant amounts of revenue.
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Trails Tend to be Positive When Docs Take Industry Dollars
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Study findings may suggest bias in the evidence base
When study investigators have financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies, clinical trial results are more likely to turn up positive, researchers found.
In a review of 190 papers on randomized controlled trials, taking money from industry was significantly associated with favorable trial results in a fully adjusted model (OR 3.37, 95% CI 1.43 to 7.9), Salomeh Keyhani, MD, of the University of California San Francisco, and colleagues reported online in The BMJ.
MedPage Today
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Pressure mounts on GOP for post-Obamacare plan following CBO report
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A new analysis that at least 18 million people could lose health insurance in the first year if Congress repeals the Affordable Care Act without replacing it intensified the battle this week over the landmark health-care law as President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans try to figure out how to dismantle it.
Democrats seized on the report, issued Tuesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, to discredit Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare and rally Americans who are insured under the program. The report underscored the political peril that Trump faces in trying to meet one of his top campaign promises — and also the discord among Republicans about how to do it.
The political and public-relations battle over the ACA is now at full speed, with Democrats holding rallies across the country and inviting Americans to Capitol Hill to describe how their lives were improved or even saved by the law. Republicans, meanwhile, accused Democrats of distorting the truth about the much-debated program — but also revealed signs of disunity about how to meet their promise of repeal without political fallout among voters or economic calamity in the insurance market.
Washington Post
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Webinar: The New CMS Quality Payment Program MACRA-MIPs/APMs Emphasizing Pain Management 2017
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The Final Rule of the CMS Merit-Based Incentive Payment System, MIPS, and Alternative Payment Models, APMs, was published on 10/14/16, and is ~ 2,300 pages. Identified as the Quality Payment Program, QPP, it is extensive in scope to reward or penalize providers for performing certain measures in four performance categories. The four categories are: (1) Quality(2) Cost(3) Improvement Activities, and (4) Advancing Care Information. The four categories result in a final score of between 0 to 100 points. Depending on the provider's final score, a penalty/reward is assessed, or the provider remains neutral. For 2017 the penalty is 4%, but the bonus could be 3 to 4 times that amount. MIPS replaces PQRS, MU, and the VM (value modifier) programs, but rolls these same programs into the 3 performance categories above and the new category, Improvement Activities. This Webinar should educate physicians and their managers on how to understand and potentially achieve high scores in the new Quality Payment Program and avoid costly penalties in their Medicare Part B claims.
This webinar will explain and review:
QUALITY PAYMENT PROGRAM (QPP)
1. MACRA - MIPs / APMs
a. Components of MIPs
- QUALITY, ACI (Advancing Care Information), IA (Improvement Activity), RU (Resource Use)
- Scoring
2. PROVIDE GUIDANCE ON OBTAINING THE QUALITY RESOURCE USE REPORT, QRUR
- A comparative report prepared by CMS for attributing the cost to care to physicians and groups used to determine resource use in 2018
- Obtaining an EIDM portal thru Medicare
WEBINAR FEE: $185
WEBINAR DATE: January 19, 2017
SPEAKER: Deborah H. Tracy, MD, MBA
Click HERE to register
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Feds Issue Final Rule on Sharing of Substance Abuse Records
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The federal government has issued a final rule that makes data about a patient's substance use history more readily available to help with coordination of care but that also mandates privacy protection measures.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) published the final rule on confidentiality of patient records with respect to substance use disorder in the Federal Register on January 13.
SAMHSA first proposed a change in policy in February 2016, noting that policies governing confidentiality of records for substance use treatment had not been addressed since 1987. Much has changed since then, including the development of electronic health records and systems of health delivery that aim to coordinate care, SAMHSA notes.
Medscape
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McKesson to Pay $150 Million for Failing to Report ‘Suspicious’ Drug Orders
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McKesson Corp. will pay the U.S. government $150 million to settle allegations that it failed to properly oversee shipments of drugs, including opioid painkillers, between 2008 and 2013, federal agencies said.
The settlement also requires McKesson to suspend sales of controlled substances from its distribution centers in Colorado, Ohio, Michigan and Florida “for multiple years,” the Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Administration said in statements Tuesday.
A government investigation found evidence that McKesson “did not fully implement or adhere to” its own rules for detecting and reporting to the DEA suspiciously large or frequent orders for drugs it distributed to independent and small pharmacies, the statements said.
Wall Street Journal Access to this article may be limited.
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OHSIPP Meeting
August 25-27, 2017
The Ohio Society of Interventional Pain Physicians (OHSIPP) has set the dates for its 2017 meeting.
Dates are Friday Aug 25 thru Sunday Aug 27, 2017.
The meeting will be held in Cincinnati at the Westin Hotel, 21 E 5th St , at Fountain Square .
Contact Michelle Byers for more information MichelleHByers@gmail.com
FSIPP Meeting
August 27 - 30, 2017
The Florida Society of Interventional Pain Physicians (FSIPP) has set the dates for its 2017 meeting
Dates are April 27-30, 2107
The meeting will be held in Orlando, FL at the Orlando World Center Marriott
Click Here for more information and to make reservation
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