American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians | February 1, 2017
American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians | August 2, 2017
 

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2017 ASIPP Washington Legislative trip

Set for Sept 12-13, 2017 


At no other time in the history of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians has it been more important for you, as members, to get involved in our advocacy efforts. Our specialty has been gravely affected by drastic and severe coverage cuts. These cuts so radical, they have hurt more than just our bottom lines; some practices and surgery centers have been forced to close their doors.  

The election of President Trump and his appointment of Representative Tom Price as Health and Human Services Secretary and Seema Verma to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have given us some hope and an opportunity to achieve some of our goals, and possibly reverse these cuts retroactively and reinstate the previous reimbursement or even improve reimbursement for 2018. 

Now is our chance! Let your voices be heard! 

We have scheduled a legislative conference September 12 and 13. To participate in this conference, you must to be in Washington on Tuesday, September 12 in order to attend the preparation session. Wednesday, September 13, we will head to Capitol Hill to hear speeches and meet with Senators and Representatives. Some appointments may continue through Thursday. If you would like to leave on Wednesday, please do not plan on leaving before 6 pm.  

Each member is expected to visit two senators and one member of Congress for a total of three visits.  

ASIPP will be booking a block of rooms for those who choose to attend. You will be responsible for travel expenses.  

Please let us know as soon as possible if you will be attending so that we can begin making the appointments. Contact Kasi Stunson kstunson@asipp.org.


GOP leaders say it’s time for Senate to move on from health care  


Senate Republican leaders signaled Monday that they intend to move on from health care to other legislative priorities, even as President Trump continued to pressure lawmakers to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

The discord comes amid uncertainty in the insurance industry and on Capitol Hill about what will come next after last week’s dramatic collapse of the GOP’s effort to scrap the seven-year-old landmark law. Trump on Monday threatened to end subsidies to insurers and also took aim at coverage for members of ­Congress.

But the White House insistence appears to have done little to convince congressional GOP leaders to keep trying. One after another on Monday, top GOP senators said that with no evidence of a plan that could get 50 votes, they were looking for other victories.    


Washington Post


Senate Republicans Rebuff Donald Trump’s Health-Care Push  


WASHINGTON—Senate Republicans made clear on Tuesday that they want to chart their own course to focus on a tax overhaul and critical fiscal legislation, bypassing requests from President Donald Trump and White House officials to keep health care their top legislative priority.

In his first press conference since a GOP health bill collapsed in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) on Tuesday left health legislation off the list of items to be voted on before the chamber leaves for recess later this month, despite Mr. Trump’s calls for the Senate to dive back in.

Mr. McConnell, who has said he prefers to keep disagreements with the president private, also disclosed that he had told Mr. Trump that most senators don’t support changing the chamber’s rules to allow bills to pass on a simple majority vote, as the president urged on Twitter several times in the past week.    


Wall Street Journal

Access to this article may be limited.

Is Tom Price Making Medicine Great Again?
HHS Secretary rolls back regulations that docs hate


As the Senate was barrelling toward one of its votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act earlier this summer, Tom Price was corralling a small group of doctors into a tiny, dimly lit conference room in a nondescript building in downtown Dallas. It was, on its surface, another of the health secretary's many meetings with "victims" of Obamacare -- this time with some of the conservative physicians who felt the law was hurting their patients and their own bottom lines. An official readout from Price's staff trumpeted the eight participating physicians as "witnesses" to Obamacare's failings.    


Related articles:  


  Senate to hold bipartisan healthcare hearings in September

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions will hold hearings in September to discuss how they can help stabilize insurance markets, according to CNN . Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the committee, announced he is working with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., to make sure the hearings are bipartisan. GOP leadership received criticism from both Democrats and Republicans about the closed nature of their earlier healthcare efforts, which stalled indefinitely last week after three Republicans sided with Democrats to vote down the "skinny" repeal 51 to 49.
"If your house is on fire, you want to put out the fire, and the fire in this case is the individual health insurance market. Both Republicans and Democrats agree on this," Mr. Alexander said. "Unless we act, many [people] may not have policies available to buy in 2018 because insurance companies will pull out of collapsing markets."

  Brigham and Women's may extend buyout offer beyond initial 1,600 employees

Boston-based Brigham and Women's Hospital may ask more employees to voluntarily leave their jobs just three months after offering buyouts to 1,600 employees, according to The Boston Globe. "We are considering a respectful way to minimize any potential involuntary reduction in force by inviting some employees who may wish to leave the Brigham to voluntarily separate from the organization," the hospital said in a statement to The Boston Globe.
"When we announced the voluntary retirement opportunity in April, we indicated that additional reductions in force would likely be necessary." When Brigham and Women's announced the buyout offer in April, the organization said it is profitable but facing pressure amid shrinking payments from government and commercial insurers and growing labor costs. Buyouts were only offered to employees age 60 or older. The offer includes one year of base pay and health insurance for up to 20 months.  

  Attorney General Sessions Announces Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit

Attorney General Jeff Sessions today announced the formation of the Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit, a new Department of Justice pilot program to utilize data to help combat the devastating opioid crisis that is ravaging families and communities across America.
Speaking at the Columbus Police Academy today, Attorney General Sessions said that the new Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit will focus specifically on opioid-related health care fraud using data to identify and prosecute individuals that are contributing to this prescription opioid epidemic.  

Screeners to Predict Opioid Misuse in Patients With Chronic Pain  

It is estimated that chronic pain affects up to one-quarter of adults in industrialized nations.1
Opioids represent an effective treatment option for many patients with chronic pain. However, rates of opioid misuse and related overdoses have soared in recent years in the United States, highlighting the importance of screening tools to identify patients at high risk for adverse events from opioid use.2 For patients determined to be at an elevated risk for  opioid-related overdose, alternative therapies or increased monitoring may be indicated.
"These instruments offer an important and impartial alternative to methods that do not reliably classify individuals according to risk, including clinical interviews, provider observation of problematic behaviors, and urine toxicology screening," noted the authors of a review on the topic recently published in the  Journal of Pain.3      


By the Numbers: Getting to Know U.S. Pain Patients
A glance at the 15% who have daily pain  

Normally in this spot, we highlight a single finding from a recent study. This time around, we thought we'd take a different tack. We dug into the 2016 National Health Interview Survey -- 805 questions asked of 33,000 Americans -- and in particular the data on pain. Nearly 1 in 7 respondents last year reported they felt pain every single day in the past six months. While the current wisdom is that pain is overtreated

, we thought it would be worth taking a closer look at other ways this fairly large group differs from other respondents.  
Bottom line: people who report chronic pain are older, in poorer health, more likely to be on depression or anxiety medication, and more financially troubled. They're also slightly more responsible patients.  

    Number of actively licensed doctors increased in last 6 years  

Despite predictions of a physician shortage, the number of actively licensed physicians in the U.S. has increased by 12% since 2010, according to a new report from the Federation of State Medical Boards. The 2016 physician census found the total number of licensed physicians grew from 850,085 in 2010 to 953,695 last year, according to the latest  report (PDF). Female physicians now account for one-third of all actively licensed physicians.
The physician census is released every two years in the Journal of Medical Regulation and uses data received by the federation from the country’s state medical and osteopathic licensing boards.    

Mishawaka man killed doctor after dispute over opioid prescription, police say  

Michael Jarvis, 48, of Mishawaka, fatally shot Dr. Todd Graham on Wednesday after the doctor refused to prescribe opioid pain medication to Jarvis' wife, according to police. Jarvis' wife, Petra, was a new patient of Graham and had an appointment on Wednesday, officials said.
The doctor at the appointment informed Jarvis and his wife that, even though she suffered from pain, he would not prescribe the opioid.     

JULY ISSUE NOW AVAILABLE!

Interventional Pain Management Reports is an Open Access online journal, a peer-reviews journal dedicated to the publication of case reports, brief commentaries and reviews and letters to the editor. It is a peer-reviewed journal written by and directed to an audience of interventional pain physicians, clinicians and basic scientists with an interest in interventional pain management and pain medicine.  

We would like to invite you to submit research case reports, brief commentaries and reviews to Interventional Pain Management Reports Journal. Your article will be published FREE’ of charge.  

Led by Editor in Chief: Kenneth Candido, MD, Chairman and Professor, Department of Anesthesiology , Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago, IPM Reports focuses on the promotion of  excellence in the practice of interventional pain management and clinical research.  

Interventional Pain Management Reports is an official publication of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians (ASIPP) and is a sister publication of Pain Physician. Interventional Pain Management Reports Interventional Pain Management Reports is an open access journal, available online with free full manuscripts.    

The benefits of publishing in an open access journal that has a corresponding print edition journal are:  
  • Your article will have the potential to obtain more citations.
  • Your article will be peer-reviewed and published faster than other journals.
  • Your article can be read by a potentially much larger audience compared with traditional subscription-only journals.  
  • Open Access journals are FREE to view, download and to print.
So submit today your:
Case Reports
Technical Reports
Editorials
Short Perspectives

  Click HERE to read the Instructions for Authors for article submission    

Click HERE to submit a manuscript

State Society News  

September 15-17, 2017: California  

CASIPP 8th Annual Meeting
September 15-17, 2017 Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel
Additional 10% discount for ASIPP Members – enter ASIPP17 in the discount box at registration To register: http://www.casipp.com/2017-meeting-registration.htm    

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.


Send in your state society meeting news to Holly Long, hlong@asipp.org


  The NIPM-QCDR, a new offering 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).  
  • Meet CMS MIPS mandates for Quality and Improvement Activities
  • Receive credit toward Advancing Care Information
  • Report on specialty-specific measures developed by ASIPP
  • Understand and adjust your 2017 performance to optimize future CMS reimbursement with real-time reports available on-demand
  • Be better prepared for CMS quality reporting in future years when penalties and incentives get even larger
  • Improve the quality of patient care in the specialty of interventional pain managementLearn more and get started with 2017 reporting by visiting ArborMetrix.com/NIPM-QCDR.

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