In a sprawling Part B fee schedule released today, CMS proposed a 4% decrease to the Medicare conversion factor, revised policies for numerous E/M services, physician assistant billing freedoms and a loosening of telehealth coverage policies.
Conversion factor and payments
The rate cut is a result of mandated budget neutrality adjustments and the expiration of the one-year 3.75% fee increase that was set in motion by the Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) of 2021.
The 2022 anesthesia conversion factor is projected to fall to $21.04 in 2022, a 2% decrease year-to-year from the $21.56 rate in 2021.
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A proposed LCD on Epidural Procedures for Pain Management services was announced on June 10, 2021. This nationwide policy contains many onerous changes that will detrimentally affect patient access to care. ASIPP has written comment letters with detailed explanations of the issues and needed changes to each Medicare Contractor. The following are examples of the ASIPP comment letters:
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ASIPP® is pleased to offer a new feature for
its members to help provide value to you and your practice.
Click here to visit ASIPP®'s newly created site where you can
make purchases on our Amazon Store, learn more about and
join the ASIPP® GPO and ASIPP®’s partnership with
Fedora Billing & Revenue Cycle Management Company.
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E-cig maker sponsored nearly a dozen studies, took over journal as it awaits FDA ruling
As e-cigarette manufacturer Juul Labs waits for the FDA to rule on its products' public health benefits, it is facing scrutiny for funding and working on studies of those products, and paying a journal to publish them.
Juul teamed up with healthcare consultants Pinney Associates and the Centre for Substance Use Research (CSUR), chiefly, to examine its tobacco vaping device, as FDA weighs whether to grant the company a Premarket Tobacco Product Application (PMTA) as a safer alternative to cigarettes.
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The crush of new COVID patients this week at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Mo., was unlike anything the staff had seen during the past 16 months. Officials resorted to borrowing ventilators from other hospitals and pleaded on social media for help from respiratory therapists.
The run on ventilators subsided, but this week Mercy Springfield cared for more COVID patients than it has seen in any week since the pandemic started. The city is in Greene County, where only about 35 percent of residents have been fully vaccinated and the highly contagious Delta variant is spreading.
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Defeating this pandemic and the highly contagious Delta variant isn't just about protecting yourself through vaccination -- it's also about having others in the community vaccinated, doctors say.
"Even if you are vaccinated, if you're living in an area with high rates of COVID-19 spread -- and with the Delta variant surging -- there is a chance that you could become infected," said emergency physician Dr. Leana Wen, visiting professor at George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health.
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After months of data collection, scientists agree: The delta variant is the most contagious version of the coronavirus worldwide. It spreads about 225% faster than the original version of the virus, and it's currently dominating the outbreak in the United States.
A new study, published online Wednesday, sheds light on why. It finds that the variant grows more rapidly inside people's respiratory tracts and to much higher levels, researchers at the Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
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Great News!
The Annual Meeting of the Ohio & Kentucky Societies
of Interventional Pain Physicians is back!
Designated for 15 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™
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Pain Medicine Case Reports (PMCR) and Editor-in-Chief Alaa Abd-Elsayed, MD, PhD would like to invite you to submit case reports and case series to the PMCR journal. Your article will be published free of charge.
Open access journals are freely available online for immediate worldwide open access to the full text of published articles. There is no subscription fee for open access journals. Open access journals are no different from traditional subscription-based journals: they undergo the same peer-review and quality control as any other scholarly journal.
Interested in becoming a member of the PMCR Editorial Board?
Editorial board members are asked to review 2-6 manuscripts per year. Please submit your most up-to-date CV to sgold@asipp.org for consideration.
For more information or to submit your articles, click here.
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| CASE REPORT |
Alaa Abd-Elsayed, MD, Michael Gyorfi, MD, and Meghan Hughes, MD
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) is not only one of the most common adverse experiences of cancer survivors, but it is also one which has the greatest effect on quality of life. Ultimately, CIPN can lead to unwanted modification of treatment such as chemotherapy dose reductions or termination of treatment altogether.
CASE REPORT: We present a case of a 47-year-old man with severe bilateral CIPN resistant to conservative management, who was successfully treated with spinal cord stimulation.
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| NARRATIVE REVIEW |
Edward Podgorski III, MD, Pedro Mascaro, MD, and Dennis Patin, MD
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Evidence suggests that dorsal root ganglion stimulation (DRGS) is a more effective treatment for focal neuropathic pain (FNP) compared with tonic, paresthesia-based dorsal column spinal cord stimulation (SCS). However, new advancements in waveforms for dorsal column SCS have not been thoroughly studied or compared with DRGS for the treatment of FNP.
OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this review was to examine the evidence for these novel technologies; to highlight the lack of high-quality evidence for the use of neuromodulation to treat FNP syndromes other than complex regional pain syndrome I or II of the lower extremity; to emphasize the absence of comparison studies between DRGS, burst SCS, and high-frequency SCS; and to underscore that consideration of all neuromodulation systems is more patient-centric than a one-size-fits-all approach.
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| RANDOMIZED TRIAL |
Abdelraheem Elawamy, MD, Manal Hassanien, MD, Esraa A. Talaat, MD, Anwar M. Ali, MD, Al Shimaa Ismael Roushdy, MD,
and Emad Zarief Kamel, MD
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is the most entrapment syndrome in general and is the most frequent peripheral nervous system involvement in systemic sclerosis (SSc). Local injection of steroid hydrodissection or ozone-oxygen showed favourable outcome in CTS in general.
OBJECTIVES: To compare the clinical efficacy of ozone versus methylprednisolone intracarpal injection upon pain, functional status, and nerve conduction in patients with CTS due to SSc.
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CALSIPP
ANNUAL MEETING
Registration & Agenda
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Since this malpractice insurance program officially launched in November 2018, ASIPP has signed up hundreds of providers with an average savings of 30%. This is professional liability insurance tailored to our specialty and will stand up for us and defend our practices.
Norcal Mutual is 'A' Rated by AM best and is license in all 50 states. To read a few important points to keep in mind about the program, including discounts, administrative defense, cyber coverage, aggressive claims handling, and complimentary award-winning risk management CME activities, click here.
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ASIPP® is now offering our members the benefit of a unique revenue cycle management/ billing service. We have received a tremendous amount of interest in the ASIPP® billing and coding program.
Click here to learn more about the negotiated rate for practices and more!
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ASIPP® has formed a partnership with Henry Schein and PedsPal, a national GPO that has a successful history of negotiating better prices on medical supplies and creating value-added services for the independent physician. Working with MedAssets, PedsPal provides excellent pricing on products like contrast media that alleviate some of the financial pressures you experience today.
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up-to-date news related to you, your practice, and your patients!
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