Start Planning NOW! ASIPP Abstract Submission for 2018 Annual Meeting is Open
The American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians will hold its 20th Annual Meeting March 15-17, 2018 in Orlando, Florida at
Marriott Orlando World Center.
This year, we will be making significant changes to the Abstract and Poster Sessions. Submissions will be in two categories: Resident/Fellow and Physician. Selected posters will be on display forall meeting participants during all breaks and meal times.
The Abstract Committee will select the top 25 for publication in Pain Physician and of those 10 will be selected for Abstract presentation and judging during the Annual Meeting. The top 3 will receive cash prizes.
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Opioid use explains 20% of drop in American men from labor force
Opioid use by American men may account for one-fifth of the decline in their participation in the U.S. labor force, according to a study by Princeton University economist Alan Krueger.
“The opioid crisis and depressed labor-force participation are now intertwined in many parts of the U.S.,” Krueger, who was chief economist at the Treasury Department in the Obama administration, wrote in the
study released Thursday at a Brookings Institution conference in Washington.
Krueger’s study linked county prescription rates to labor force data from the past 15 years, concluding that regional differences in prescription rates were due to variations in medical practices, not health conditions. In previous research, he found that nearly half of men in their prime worker ages not in the labor force take prescription painkillers daily.
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ASIPP Has Another Successful Legislative Trip to Washington, DC
ASIPP has had a successful legislative trip in Washington D.C. this week. At no other time in the history of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians has it been more important to get involved in advocacy efforts. We are finally seeing the potential for change. After struggling with a deep regulatory tsunami for several years, there is a light at the end of the tunnel for IPM.
To reach our goals ASIPP has made it's presence known in Washington this week with approximately 70 ASIPP delegates representing 25 states.
The following are the 4 major issues discussed in the congressional visits:
- Drastic cuts to ASC reimbursement
- Medicare Advantage or Disadvantage Non-coverage Policies
- Continued physician payment cuts for various interventional pain management procedures
- Making MIPS more friendly with the elimination of meaningless use and any penalties
ASIPP had a planning meeting yesterday and today had speeches and meetings with members of Congress. Scheduled speakers were Representative John Shimkus (R-IL), Vanila Singh, MD and Chief Medical Officer, HHS, Representative Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA), Senator Bill Cassidy, MD (R-LA), and Representative Larry Buschon, MD (R-IN). ASIPP members very surprised and excited to welcome Surgeon General Jerome Adams! And there was a successful fundraiser for Chairman Kevin Brady, Ways and Means Committee (taxes, health care, Social Security, Medicare, international trade and welfare). He is a Republican U.S. Representative for the Texas 8
th district. He has been a champion in helping put forth multiple issues related to interventional pain management.
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- Did you know Placebos work even if patient knows about it? Could this help with Opioid Problems?
If your doctor told you that she was giving you a placebo and that it would help you, would you believe her? As it turns out, based on new research, maybe you should.
Placebos are often considered “fake” treatments. You may have heard them described as “sugar pills.” They usually take the form of pills, injections, or even entire procedures that are used in clinical trials to test “real” treatments. For example, one group of study participants is given an active drug and another group is given a placebo, which looks exactly like the active medication but is completely inactive. The participants can’t tell whether they’re getting the fake drug or the real drug. The researchers wait to see if the people taking the real one do better (or worse) than those taking the fake one.
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Help the Victims of Hurricane Harvey With ASIPP® Relief Fund
Hurricane Harvey has devastated much of Southeast Texas with severe flooding. The city of Houston got three times as much rain in just 48 hours as was pumped out of New Orleans during all of Hurricane Katrina. At least 38 people have died in Southeast Texas from the storm, and more than 32,000 were forced into shelters. The need for aid is monumental.
You can join the rebuilding efforts coming together across the country and around the world to help the victims of this devastating flood.
The ASIPP® Relief Fund is a non-profit 501 (c) (3) organization, tax ID#61-1399555 and 100% of your donation will go to national organizations leading the Hurricane Harvey relief operations.
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Irma forces 35 hospitals across 3 states to evacuate: 9 things to know
Hurricane Irma hit southwest Florida Sunday and continued its destructive march north, forcing at least 35 hospitals across Florida, Georgia and South Carolina to evacuate patients or shut down. Downgraded to a tropical storm Monday morning, Irma still presents a major threat to many healthcare facilities.
Here are nine things to know.
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Physician-owned practices spend $19k per physician on health IT:
4 key statistics
Independent physician practices spent significantly more on health IT per physician than hospital-owned practices in 2015, according to MGMA's 2017 DataDive Cost and Revenue Survey.
Here are four things to know:
1. Independent physician practices spent 200 percent more per physician on health IT than hospital-owned practices, as reported in
Open Minds.
2. The average physician-owned practice spent $19,000 per physician on health IT while hospital-owned practices spent nearly $8,000 per physician.
3. At multispecialty physician-owned practices with primary and specialty care, the health IT operating expense per full-time physician was $23,187, according to the MGMA 2016 Cost and Revenue Report.
4. Orthopedic surgery practices reported a 78.1 percent increase in IT general operating expenses from 2007 to 2015.
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Physicians Finding Workaround Solutions for Rising Cost of Medications
HealthDay News — In an effort to mitigate the increasing cost of prescription medications, some physicians are creating novel workaround solutions, according to an article published by
Kaiser Health News.
Frustrated by seemingly unreasonable price tags and political stagnation, some physicians are making efforts to bring down prescription drug costs for their patients. One example involves the physician Cathleen London, from Milbridge, Maine, who devised a workaround for EpiPens.
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Lady Gaga's Not Afraid to Show the World Her Chronic Pain in New Netflix Documentary
In Lady Gaga’s upcoming Netflix documentary “
Gaga: Five Foot Two,” viewers will get a glimpse of Gaga’s life away from the spotlight — including her struggles with
chronic pain. While promoting the documentary, Gaga opened up about why she included these difficult scenes in the film and the support she hopes her fellow pain warriors feel while watching it.
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Pilates Effective in Alleviating Chronic Low Back Pain
Pilates may represent an effective therapy for the management of chronic lower back pain (LBP), as it was shown to be associated with improvements in pain intensity, disability and function, deep trunk muscle activation, and kinesiophobia in a study recently published in
Complementary Therapies in Medicine.
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Concierge Medicine: Just the Ticket for Many Patients and Doctors
Concierge medicine fills an important and growing niche in today's medical marketplace, appealing to thousands of physicians around the country and the scores of patients they serve.
Concierge medicine is defined as “a subscription-based form of healthcare delivery in which a physician provides medical care to patients, for various services not covered by their health insurance, which generally involves: providing 24/7 access; a cell phone number to connect directly with their physician; same-day appointments; visits that last as long as it takes to address their needs; and varying other amenities. In exchange for this enhanced access and personal attention, the concierge physician receives a subscription fee.”
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Is Nerve Decompression Effective for Restless Leg Syndrome?
RLS, a sleep disorder that affects up to 15% of the general population, is not clearly understood, and available treatments target symptoms rather than the underlying cause.
According to a retrospective analysis recently published in
Frontiers in Neurology, nerve decompression used to treat peripheral neuropathy may improve symptoms of restless leg syndrome (RLS).
A sleep disorder that affects up to 15% of the general population, RLS is not clearly understood, and available treatments target symptoms rather than the underlying cause. For two-thirds of patients with RLS, the disorder is idiopathic, with an onset before age 45 and a genetic component.
RLS is often comorbid with peripheral neuropathy, with incidence ranging from 5.2% to 54%.
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Why This Sudden Opioid Crisis?
A simple question about whether there was any connection between the War in Afghanistan and the current opioid epidemic in the United States involved sifting through many through-the-looking-glass speculations.
According to several credentialed best estimates, Afghanistan is believed to supply anywhere from 80-90 percent of the world’s opium. Reliable, official, ranking sources, like the DEA, also say 99 percent of the opioids (natural and synthetic) in the United States do not come here from Afghanistan. They stand behind the claim even though Canada reportedly receives most of its opioids from that country, and the states first to declare war on opioids are clustered on the US’ porous northern border. What’s more, a fact sheet published by the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians states, “Americans … have been consuming 80 percent of the global opioid supply, and 99 percent of the global hydrocodone [a derivative of opium] supply, as well as two-thirds of the world’s illegal drugs.”
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Advances in Neuromodulation and Regenerative Medicine
Highlights from the American Society of Interventional Physicians annual meeting, including neuromodulation, humanistic care, vertebral augmentation, regenerative medicine, controlled substance prescribing, and more.
A simple question about whether there was any connection between the War in Afghanistan and the There are numerous medical conferences that
Practical Pain Management (
PPM) tries to attend and cover. We are fortunate that when the
PPM staff can’t attend a conference, we usually can call upon one of our expert editorial board members to act as our “roving reporter.”
We were fortunate to have Elmer G. Pinzon, MD, MPH, physiatrist at the University Spine and Sports Specialists in Knoxville, Tennessee, attend this year’s annual meeting of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians (ASIPP), held at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas this past April.
Dr. Pinzon offers his highlights of the meeting, which included a variety of informative presentations on topics ranging from neuromodulation to humanistic care, vertebral augmentation, regenerative medicine, controlled substance prescribing, and much more.
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Company Looks to Formal Protocols to Reduce Opioid Misuse
A lack of formal protocols for treating the rapidly growing population of patients struggling with both chronic, severe pain and addiction has hampered effective treatment, according to a group of pain medicine physicians trying to do something about it.
A comprehensive, cohesive protocol is needed because the opioid problem is interdisciplinary, yet hospital care is “fragmented and based on the siloed approach of each department,” which often exacerbates the problem, said Joseph V. Pergolizzi Jr., MD, senior partner at Naples Anesthesia and Pain Associates, in Naples, Fla., and a member of the
Pain Medicine News editorial advisory board. “Hence, [there’s] the need for a system-based approach rather than a sporadic seminar or a lecture here and there.”
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Younger Generations Far Less Likely to Use Opioids for Pain; More Prone to Diversion, Misuse
Millennials, a generation frequently cited for its contrarian and unique consumer preferences, appear to be turning their backs on another industry: opioids. According to a new survey from the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), Americans between 18 and 36 years of age are less likely to use opioids to manage pain.
The survey found that millennials are half as likely as baby boomers (aged 53-71 years) to use opioids, and 20% say they regret using opioids. These numbers don’t come from a lack of pain, however; 75% of millennials said they experienced acute pain and almost 60% have experienced chronic pain.
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Clinical Dividends For Primary Care Pain Telemedicine
The University of California, Davis is leading the way in helping primary care practices throughout the state better treat and manage pain. About four years ago, the university developed a unique and novel tool kit to expand access to sophisticated and thoughtful pain care, in addition to tackling the opioid abuse epidemic.
“Responsible opioid prescribing has always been part of the DNA at UC Davis,” said David Copenhaver, MD, MPH, associate director of the Center for Advancing Pain Relief (CAPR) at the university. “There are many patients who can benefit from responsible, prudent opioid prescribing.”
In collaboration with his colleague Scott Fishman, MD, a pain specialist at UC Davis, Dr. Copenhaver has focused on telementoring. “There are simply not enough pain specialists and addiction specialists in the state of California to address the medical needs of its citizens,” Dr. Copenhaver said.
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Occupational Therapy: Untapped Potential for Chronic Pain Management
On March 16, 2016, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released its National Pain Strategy. The plan is the first of its kind, created by the federal government to tackle the epidemic of chronic pain in the United States.
A landmark Institute of Medicine study in 2011 outlined the fiscal burden of chronic pain, which was estimated to be around $600 billion annually in lost wages and medical expenditures. The HHS thus tasked the Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee and its various stakeholders to construct a pain health care plan for the United States. As a result, the future for occupational therapy (OT) to help fulfill some of the National Pain Strategy recommendations has never been brighter.
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The Role of NPs and PAs in Managing Pain in the Primary Care Setting: A Q&A
Nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) are increasingly called upon to manage a variety of forms of chronic pain in primary care settings. Clinicians face formidable challenges in assessing the patient’s pain, selecting appropriate nonpharmacologic and pharmacologic therapies, determining whether the patient requires treatment with opioid agents, and providing ongoing monitoring to prevent abuse and diversion of the medications.
To gain further perspective into this complex issue,
Pain Medicine News interviewed Mary Milano Carter, MS, ANP-BC, RN-BC, adult medicine and gerontology nurse practitioner, Long Island Neurosurgical and Pain Specialists, in West Islip, N.Y. Ms. Carter is board certified in pain management through the American Nurses Credentialing Center, a partner of the American Society for Pain Management Nursing (ASPMN), where she serves as master faculty. She is the founder of the Long Island chapter of ASPMN, and is a member of the editorial advisory board for the newly launched
Pain Medicine News NP/PA Edition.
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September 15-17, 2017: California
CASIPP 8th Annual Meeting
September 15-17, 2017 Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel
September: Michigan
The Michigan Society of Interventional Pain Physicians will meet Saturday, Sept. 23, 2017 at 11 am at Gilbert & Blake’s , 3554 Okemos Road, Okemos, MI.
Distinquished speakers will be Orlando Florete, MD, President of the Florida chapter and Shevin D. Pollydore, president of the Georgia chapter.
October 7, 2017: New York
The 2017 The Art and Science of Pain Management: A Clinical and Research Update will be Oct. 7, 2017 at The Gideon Putnam, 24 Gideon Putnam Road, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
The meeting is sponsored by Albany Medical College’s Department of Neuroscience and Experimental Therapeutics and the Office of Continuing Medical Education and the Albany Medical Center Provider Unit for Continuing Nursing Education. Registration Deadline is October 2, 2017.
For information regarding the conference, contact the Office of Continuing Medical Education by phone at (518) 262-5828, fax at (518) 262-5679 or e-mail at
pricej@mail.amc.edu.
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Physician-owned practices spend $19k per physician on health IT:
4 key statistics
The
National Interventional Pain Management – Qualified Clinical Data Registry (NIPM-QCDR), a new resource from ASIPP®, is specifically tailored for interventional pain physicians. Your practice can use the NIPM-QCDR to fulfill the 2017 requirements of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). Specifically, you can meet MIPS mandates for
Qualityand
Improvement Activities, and receive credit toward
Advancing Care Information.
The NIPM-QCDR combines rich CMS reporting capabilities with the first-ever set of measures specifically designed for interventional pain medicine. Participating in the NIPM-QCDR will make quality reporting more meaningful to your everyday practice, and help you improve care and optimize results.
Upcoming deadlines:
Full reporting:
Sign up before November 3 to avoid a downward payment adjustment (penalty), and potentially earn a neutral or positive payment adjustment (bonus), by submitting a partial year or a full year of data.
Minimal reporting:
Sign up before December 15 to avoid a downward payment adjustment (penalty) by submitting the minimum amount of data (one measure).
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