American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians | January 2, 2019
HHS Releases Draft Report on Pain Management Best Practices

Draft Report Overview
The significant public awareness and the pressure for both federal and state regulatory agencies and other stakeholders to address the opioid crisis has in part contributed to health care providers limiting the number of opioid prescriptions they write. Regulatory oversight has also led to fears of prescribing among some clinicians, with some refusing to prescribe opioids even to established patients on a stable opioid regimen. This increased vigilance and targeting of the misuse of prescription opioids and the tightening of their availability have in some situations led to unintended consequences, such as patient abandonment and forced tapering, with established patients with pain possibly transitioning to illicit drugs, including illicit fentanyl and heroin – this would be a separate group of patients distinguished from those with substance use disorders (evidenced by Task Force public comments). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recently noted that the opioid crisis is quickly moving to a fentanyl crisis. This has coincided with an increase in the demand of the illicit drug market for synthetic opioids as well as other substances, and with a four-fold increase in the heroin death rate since 2010. Nationwide, nearly half of all opioid overdose deaths in 2017 involved illicitly manufactured fentanyl. Fentanyl is an opioid used for pain and anesthesia and is 50 times more potent than morphine. Illicit fentanyl (manufactured abroad and distinct from medical use in the United States), with an even more potent synthetic form, has sometimes been mixed with other opioids (prescription and illicit opioids, cocaine, and other illegal substances), including heroin, resulting in sentinel outcomes because of its concentrated effect and low costs.
Public comments submitted to the Task Force show growing consideration of suicide resulting from unrelieved pain and in some cases lack of access to treatment. According to a recent CDC report using data from the National Violent Death Reporting System, the percentage of people who died by suicide who also had evidence of chronic pain increased from 7.4% in 2003 to 10.2% in 2014. 18 Numbers from this data set beyond 2014 are not yet available. This finding leads to the rising concern that a recent trend of health care professionals opting out of treating pain has contributed to an existing shortage of pain management specialists 1 and is leaving some patients without adequate access to care.



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Feb 22-24 2019, Orlando, FL
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Abstract Submission Open!

Abstract submissions are now being accepted for the 2019 ASIPP Annual Meeting Abstract and Poster Contest. The top 10 abstracts selected by our panel will be presented at the annual meeting. The top 25 abstracts will be presented as electronic posters in view for all our attendees.

Click HERE to submit. Deadline is Feb. 18


Your copy should address 3 key questions: Who am I writing for? (Audience) Why should they care? (Benefit) What do I want them to do here? (Call-to-Action)

Create a great offer by adding words like "free" "personalized" "complimentary" or "customized." A sense of urgency often helps readers take an action, so think about inserting phrases like "for a limited time only" or "only 7 remaining!"
MedPage Today 2018 Salary Survey Results

This year,  MedPage Today  presents to our readership its first annual  Salary Survey Results , an overview of how healthcare professionals working in 26 types of medicine compare in terms of pay, burnout rates, and more. Granular results from the survey for a number of different specialties have already been  posted here , and more will be presented in the coming weeks.
As we gathered and put together these results for your edification it occurred to us that while its interesting to see that the average urologist's salary is higher than that of a rheumatologist, it might also be enlightening to show how your salaries stack up against the perhaps yearned-for careers of your childhood -- when you wanted to become an astronaut, a chef, or a farmer. Did you take the right track?



The Wrenching Financial Costs Of Addiction

If you’ve seen the recent movies Beautiful Boy or Ben Is Back, you’ve learned about the pain parents experience when their grown child becomes an addict. But what the films don’t talk much about, and what’s rarely discussed, is the devastation addiction can do to the finances of the people with substance abuse disorders — and their loved ones.
A new, dramatic  study  from the True Link financial services firm lays it out starkly. True Link — best known for helping families manage finances of parents with cognitive problems — surveyed 149 friends and family members of people with a substance abuse disorder. The researchers asked about the financial challenges as well as experiences associated with recovery.



How medication treats opioid addiction

Treating opioid addiction with other drugs is considered essential to helping Americans claw their way back from the throes of dependence.
Yet the estimated 2.1 million Americans addicted to opioids — more than 620,000 with heroin addiction — have difficulty getting the treatment they need.
Only 17.5 percent of those with addictions use one of the three medications approved by the  Food and Drug Administration  that help stop cravings and prevent opioids from working during relapses.



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. 

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

Ultrarestrictive Opioid Prescription Protocol May Be Effective for Postoperative Pain Management

Implementation of an ultrarestrictive protocol for  opioid prescriptions  was found to be associated with reductions in the amount of opioids prescribed after abdominal and gynecologic surgery, with no increases in refill requests, complications, or pain scores in the postoperative period, according to study results published in  JAMA Network Open .
In this retrospective control and prospective case-cohort study, researchers sought to evaluate the efficacy of an ultrarestrictive opioid prescription protocol (UROPP) for the management of acute postsurgical pain. All gynecological oncology patients who underwent surgery from July 2016 to June 2018 at a tertiary care cancer center in New York were included in the study, with 626 pre-UROPP patients who underwent surgery between July 2016 and June 2017, and 605 post-UROPP participants who underwent surgery between June 2017 and June 2018.


Your copy should address 3 key questions: Who am I writing for? (Audience) Why should they care? (Benefit) What do I want them to do here? (Call-to-Action)

Create a great offer by adding words like "free" "personalized" "complimentary" or "customized." A sense of urgency often helps readers take an action, so think about inserting phrases like "for a limited time only" or "only 7 remaining!"
State Society News 

July 12-14, 2019
GSIPP 2019 - 15th Annual Meeting & Pain Summit
The Cloister Hotel at Sea Island
Sea Island, GA
For more information, contact Karrie Kirwan at karrie@theassociationcompany.com or Tara Morrison at tara@theassociationcompany.com or 770-613-0932.

July 26-28, 2019
PAIN 2019
West Virginia Society of Pain Physicians
Loews Miami Beach, FL


Send in your state society meeting news to Holly Long, hlong@asipp.org
ASIPP | Pain Physician Journal | Phone | Fax | Email