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 will focus 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 and regarding health care policy and ethics.

Click HERE

WEBINAR FEE:  First MIPS Webinar: $185
Attendee of January MIPS Webinar: $ 150
ASIPP Member: $150    

WEBINAR DATE: February 22, 2017 TIME:   3:30pm-5:00pm

SPEAKER: Deborah H. Tracy, MD, MBA  

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.  Now identified as the Quality Payment Program, QPP, it is extensive in scope to reward or penalize providers for performing certain activities in four performance categories.  The four categories are: (1) Quality, which will replaces PQRS, (2) Cost, attributed to Medicare providers by a complex set of statistical formulas replacing the Value Modifier (3) Improvement Activities, a new category of 90+ undertakings and (4) Advancing Care Information, which replaces Meaningful Use.  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. Physicians must educate themselves and their practice 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. Although Cost will have a weight of 0% for 2017 the Quality Resource Use Report, QRUR, will continue to be calculated for providers. This report emphasizes the cost of a providers care compared to his peers. An understanding of this report will enhance a provider's ability to understand how he can potentially improve decision making to increase quality and decrease cost.

Click HERE to Registration and for other information  

Just Released! January, 2017 ASIPP® Podcast   

On the January 2017 podcast we'll hear from Dr. Robert Wachter, one of the Keynote Speakers at our upcoming Annual Meeting; in the news segment we'll have stories about newborns addicted to opioids, what part of the brain affects the placebo effect, a potential answer for diabetic neuropathy, and much more; and we'll wrap things up with a study that claims that how much you drive affects how much you weigh.    

Click here to listen to the January, 2017 ASIPP® Podcast

WASHINGTON—Conservative Republicans, worried about growing voices within the party advising or accepting a slower pace for repealing the Affordable Care Act, are redoubling their push to speed the GOP’s long-desired goal.

President Donald Trump on Sunday became the latest top Republican to sound cautious notes about the party’s ability to rapidly repeal large swaths of the 2010 health law and enact its own vision. He told Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly that “maybe it’ll take until sometime into next year,” saying repeal and replacement was “statutorily” difficult to accomplish quickly.

The remarks reflected the unforgiving congressional math hamstringing the Republican efforts. The party has a narrow 52-48 vote majority in the Senate, and a handful of centrist Senate Republicans have already demanded that the party have a replacement in hand for the health law, sometimes called Obamacare, before they vote to void it.

 

Wall Street Journal

Access to this article may be limited.

The variation in response to pharmacological agents between individuals has been recognized for decades. However, the underlying genetic basis that provides a rational explanation for the observation that different individuals can display widely different responses to the same pharmacological agent came to light with the sequencing of the human genome, which allowed the identification of thousands of gene polymorphisms, most often single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).1,2

Polymorphism at the level of drug receptors, transporters, or other proteins involved in drug metabolism or action may have an impact on the effect of a drug, eg, by dampening its efficacy, or by increasing its toxicity. Genetic polymorphisms for many drug targets and enzymes involved in drug metabolism have been identified, particularly for anti-cancer drugs.3 Experts estimate that genetic factors account for 20% to 95% of patient variability in response to individual drugs.4 As a result, despite significant advances in pharmacotherapy, challenges related to patient subpopulations experiencing  serious to fatal adverse events or not responding to standard therapy remain.

Clinical Pain Advisor

Throughout all fields of medicine, patient advocacy organizations serve a number of valuable functions, including funding research, guiding treatment protocols, influencing legislation, and educating patients.   To accomplish these tasks, patient advocacy organizations can raise funds through several different revenue streams. Recently, researchers closely examined one of these sources — industry funding — in a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine.1

For the study, Susannah L. Rose, PhD, from the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, and fellow researchers surveyed a random sample of 439 patient advocacy organization leaders from the 7865 identified patient advocacy organizations in the United States. The results showed that 67.3% of patient advocacy organizations received industry funding, while 11.9% received more than half of their funding from industry.1      

Clinical Pain Advisor

Ohio Doctor Pleads Guilty to Running South Side Medical Center as Drug Premises and Evading More Than $3.5 Million in Taxes  

Today the government unsealed a plea agreement with the owner and operator of Columbus Southern Medical Center, which provided unlawful prescriptions of controlled substances to addicts throughout the Midwest and who engaged in a series of schemes to evade more than $3.5 million in taxes, announced Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney Benjamin C. Glassman for the Southern District of Ohio. 

Kevin B. Lake, 50, of New Albany, Ohio, pleaded guilty to drug, tax and fraud charges and agreed to the forfeiture of what remains from the $29 million in seized funds earned from the clinic’s illegal activities, after restitution is paid from the funds. 

According to court documents, Lake owned and managed Columbus Southern Medical Center through one or more corporate or trust entities which he used to insulate himself from the illegal drug trafficking being conducted at the clinic.

 

 

Former Executive of Tenet Healthcare Corporation Charged for Alleged Role in $400 Million Scheme to Defraud

A former senior executive of Tenet Healthcare Corporation, was indicted for his alleged role in an over $400 million scheme to defraud.  The indictment alleges that the scheme to defraud victimized the U.S. government, the Georgia and South Carolina Medicaid Programs, and prospective patients of Tenet hospitals.    

Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Special Agent in Charge David J. LeValley of the FBI’s Atlanta Division and Special Agent in Charge Derrick L. Jackson of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General’s (HHS-OIG) Atlanta Field Office made the announcement.

John Holland, 60, of Dallas, was charged in an indictment filed on Jan. 24 in the Southern District of Florida with one count of mail fraud, one count of health care fraud and two counts of major fraud against the United States.  Holland made an initial appearance today, Feb. 1, at 2:00 p.m. EST before U.S. Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres of the Southern District of Florida.  

  Pain Management Physician Resolves False Claims Act Allegations

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Pain management physician Dr. Robert Windsor has agreed to the entry of a $20 million consent judgment to resolve allegations that he violated the False Claims Act by billing federal health care programs for surgical monitoring services that he did not perform and for medically unnecessary diagnostic tests. Dr. Windsor owned pain management clinics in Georgia and Kentucky that operated under the umbrella of National Pain Care, Inc., including clinics in Lexington, London, Somerset, Hazard, Prestonsburg, and Pikeville, Kentucky. 

“Dr. Windsor placed personal gain above all else in his medical practice,” said Carlton S. Shier, IV, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky. “In doing so, he put his patients at risk, and defrauded the United States. We will use every tool at our disposal to protect vital healthcare programs from those who seek unearned profit at the taxpayers’ expense.” 

“Windsor placed patients at risk by claiming that he was monitoring the neurological health of patients during surgery when he actually had an unqualified medical assistant do the work,” said John Horn, U. S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. “Windsor unfortunately put his own interests above the health and safety of his patients.”