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Wednesday | April 21, 2021
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If you are registered to attend ASIPP's Annual Meeting, please send your questions in advance by clicking here.
Topics will include COVID-19, economics, burnout, social media, metabolic health, regulatory issues, scientific advances in IPM, and much more!
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Many people trying to gather their healthcare data may be all too familiar with calling medical records departments, driving to a clinic to sign a release, and paying a fee for a pile of papers with loads of medical information they don’t understand.
But this spring, new federal rules went into effect that will allow patients to see the clinic notes physicians write, which advocates say will improve patients’ knowledge of their own health.
Supporters of the open-notes effort say they are optimistic that this change will make a big difference because people will be able to click on their patient portals — such as MyChart and other similar apps — and see what their doctors have written, rather than just a list of often confusing test results and other information. Psychotherapy counseling notes are exempt from the new requirements.
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Health insurer Humana failed to comply with some federal coding requirements, resulting in overpayments of $197.7 million, according to an inspector general's report released April 20.
Under the Medicare Advantage program, CMS makes monthly payments to organizations according to a system of risk adjustment determined by the health status of each enrollee. According to the federal audit, Humana failed to submit some diagnosis codes to CMS for use in the risk adjustment program.
For Humana, the inspector general sampled 1,525 enrollees' hierarchical condition category score, the risk score used to calculate how healthy someone is to determine future healthcare costs. The inspector general said that 1,322 of the 1,525 sampled risk scores were supported in the medical records and validated, but 203 were unvalidated and resulted in overpayments.
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The 2 percent Medicare pay cut for physicians has been put on hold through the end of the year, according to a report from the American Medical Association.
President Joe Biden signed a bill into law April 15 that extended the moratorium on Medicare pay cuts through Dec. 31. The previous moratorium was set to expire April 1 and was temporarily delayed while Congress voted on the bill.
Later this year, legislators may also take steps to avoid a 4 percent Medicare pay cut scheduled for Jan. 1, 2022, which was enacted to offset the costs of the American Rescue Plan economic relief package, according to the AMA's report.
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Relaxing "bupe" training requirement is the last thing Congress should do, says GOP doc
Lawmakers on Wednesday discussed ways to remove barriers to accessing treatment for substance use disorder during a hearing of the Health Subcommittee for the Committee on Energy and Commerce.
From eliminating the training requirements for buprenorphine prescribing to take-home doses of methadone, there was no shortage of ideas, albeit controversial ones.
The subcommittee also examined the "two-track" response to dealing with opioids that seems to diverge based on race and ZIP code.
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If you have a question, please email Savannah Gold at sgold@asipp.org or call 270.554.9412, ext 4219.
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- Selected manuscripts will be presented in an Electronic Poster Presentation
- Top 25 will be published in the Pain Physician journal.
- Top 10 will be selected for the Abstract Presentation at the Annual Meeting
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Surprise finding in Israeli case series
Herpes zoster reactivation -- a.k.a. shingles -- following COVID-19 vaccination in six patients with comorbid autoimmune/inflammatory diseases may be a new adverse event associated with the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine, suggested a new report.
At two centers in Israel, there have been six cases of herpes zoster developing shortly after administration of the Pfizer vaccine in patients with disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis since December 2020, according to Victoria Furer, MD, of Tel Aviv University, and colleagues.
Little has been known about the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines among patients with rheumatic diseases because immunosuppressed individuals were not included in the initial clinical trials, they explained.
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And it's for the better
A year ago, the COVID-19 pandemic altered our world in myriad ways. We sheltered, socially distanced, masked in public. Due to safety and capacity concerns, health systems and providers scaled back non-emergency care, including canceling non-urgent surgeries. While this cautious approach was necessary early in the pandemic, it limited health systems' and providers' ability to fulfill their mission and deliver needed care to patients. We needed to find a safe path forward.
The value of multidisciplinary collaboration to collect and distribute health guidance updates has been a hallmark in the pandemic era. In that spirit, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) – working with the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation, the American College of Surgeons, the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses, and the American Hospital Association – immediately began developing recommendations and statements to guide safe care. These living documents are revised as new scientific information is established and in accordance with CDC recommendations.
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Francis Joseph, MD, spent funds on travel and home improvements, federal prosecutors say
Francis F. Joseph, MD, of Highlands Ranch, allegedly funneled $118,000 in federal funds from one of his medical clinics into his personal bank account -- then spent the money on travel, home improvements, and other things, according to a federal indictment unsealed last week.
Those funds came from the Accelerated and Advance Payments Program and the Provider Relief Fund, established under the CARES Act, prosecutors said.
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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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Bhawna Jha, MD, and Dale Carter, MD
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Headache is one of the leading neurological disorders both globally and nationally, responsible for significant morbidity and disability. Migraine headache disorder is a common headache disorder affecting at least 11% of world’s population.
CASE REPORT: We present a case of a patient who presented with migraine headaches associated with hemifacial spasm (only during acute migraine attacks) along with upper cervical pain. She was offered right-sided C2-C3 and C3-C4 intraarticular facet joint injections with steroid and local anesthetic under fluoroscopy. Significant relief in headaches along with a complete resolution of hemifacial spasms was noted.
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Abdelraheem Elawamy, MD, Emad Zarief Kamel, MD,
Safaa A. Mahran, MD, Hebatallah Abdellatif, MD,
and Manal Hassanien, MD
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Chronic knee osteoarthritis is a common problem with increasing of the aging population. Pulsed radiofrequency and intraarticular platelet-rich plasma injection are well evidenced beneficial modalities for pain alleviation in such groups of patients.
OBJECTIVE: The primary goal in this study was to compare the 2 modalities regarding pain alleviation evaluated by visual analog scale. The secondary goal-focused upon the change of the Index of Severity for Osteoarthritis of the Knee by Lequesne.
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Tingting Wang, MD, Saijun Xu, MD, Qiuli He, MD, Jiachun Tao, MD,
Huadong Ni, PhD, Jianjun Zhu, MD, Ge Luo, MD, Jie Fu, MD,
and Keyue Xie, MD
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Radiofrequency thermocoagulation through the supraorbital foramen with a different puncture method is a new approach for the treatment of ophthalmic division trigeminal neuralgia.
OBJECTIVES: To compare the efficacy of the vertical puncture method and the transverse puncture method in the treatment of ophthalmic division trigeminal neuralgia during radiofrequency thermocoagulation through the supraorbital foramen.
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Renowned pain expert Dr. David Rosenblum will share practical remedies for treating chronic pain worsened by the pandemic. You'll learn how effective, easy and affordable it is to add handheld ultrasound to your pain management practice.
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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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