Join the AMA or Renew your Membership Today!
As of now, ASIPP has two positions available in the House of Delegates and all of the other memberships where they are available, even for the other societies within AMA. The American Medical Association (AMA) requires all societies to requalify for membership in the AMA House of Delegates (HOD) every five years. To keep and hopefully increase ASIPP's membership in these committees, we have to keep at a minimum 20% AMA membership, otherwise, ASIPP will lose the AMA membership with all the available advantages.
We encourage you to join or renew your membership in the AMA. Joining the AMA will further strengthen our specialty’s representation at the national level through the AMA House of Delegates, the AMA’s policymaking body, and strengthen our ability to meet the challenges in health care today with thoughtful, well-organized responses.
As a member of the AMA, you become part of the organization that unites physicians nationwide to tackle the major issues we all face: 47 million uninsured Americans, looming Medicare payment cuts, and the need for medical liability reform. Membership also gives you access to a broad range of practice management resources and award-winning publications such as the Journal of the American Medical Association, AMNews, AMA Morning Rounds, and the Archives journals.
Please take this opportunity to support the critical activities of ASIPP by joining the AMA today. To join or renew the AMA, we encourage you to visit www.ama-assn.org or call (800) 262-3211.
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ACEP maintains it values "a diverse and representative emergency physician workforce"
Rep. Greg Murphy, MD (R-N.C.), will speak at the American College of Emergency Physicians' (ACEP) leadership meeting later this month, despite calls for the congressman to be disinvited over his bill proposing a ban on federal funding for medical schools with diversity initiatives.
Last month, the North Carolina congressmen introduced the Embracing anti-Discrimination, Unbiased Curricula, and Advancing Truth in Education (EDUCATE) Act, which per a press release on Murphy's website aims "to ban race-based mandates at medical schools and accrediting institutions."
ACEP's president, Aisha Terry, MD, MPH, took to video on Monday to explain why, despite pushback from members, Murphy is still scheduled to speak April 16 at the organization's Leadership & Advocacy Conference in Washington, D.C.
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ASIPP's Annual Meeting has concluded!
To all who attended, we hope that you had a great experience at the meeting.
Registration is open for ASIPP's 2025 Annual Meeting—we would love it if you would register and join us in Orlando!
Click here to register.
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Attend both meetings and save!
Register for ASIPP's 2025 Annual Meeting and receive a discount on your TOBI registration
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Methodology behind AvertD DNA test questioned
A group of 31 physicians and researchers called on the FDA to reverse its decision about AvertD, a test that uses DNA to identify whether adults may have an elevated risk of developing opioid use disorder (OUD).
In a letter to FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, MD, experts in genetics, addiction, psychiatry, public health, and device regulation asked the agency to revoke its recent approval of AvertD, based on research that doesn't support the methodology used by the test's sponsor.
The group also sent a letter to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure asking CMS to deny coverage of AvertD.
The FDA approved AvertD in December 2023. The prescription-only genetic test from SOLVD Health is expected to be on the market soon.
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Senators propose legislation so PE cannot 'loot one business after another'
In the wake of a deal for financially strapped Steward Health Care to sell its nationwide physician practice to UnitedHealth Group subsidiary Optum, a Senate subcommittee meeting was held in Boston on Wednesday to address ongoing concerns that the corporatization of healthcare is putting patients and providers at risk.
The meeting, led by Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), chair of the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security, focused on the broader impacts on healthcare professionals and their patients, as well as an expressed need for greater transparency in healthcare transactions, especially those involving private equity.
"Whatever the financial strategy or company type, patients and communities suffer when companies freely put corporate greed over community need," Markey said during the hearing. "Frustratingly, our system allows -- even rewards -- this strategy. Private equity companies across the country are quietly making profits while infiltrating everything from fertility care to hospice care."
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Virtual
April 27, May 25, June 29, & July 27
Click here for the complete list of upcoming exams.
ABIPP Part I; ABIPP Path - Combined DCCPM/CSM virtual exam;
ABIPP Competency Exam in IPM; ABIPP Competency Exam in Regenerative Medicine;
CSM Competency Exam; DCCPM Competency Exam
In Person
October 18, 2024
ABIPP Part II - Practical Examination
Lab Venue: MERI, 44 S. Cleveland Street, Memphis, TN 38104
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The consequences of chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP) may extend well beyond physical discomfort, potentially leading to faster aging of the brain, new research showed.
Using structural MRI data from more than 9000 adults with knee osteoarthritis (KOA) from the UK Biobank, investigators developed a brain age model to compare an individual's brain age with their chronological age. Those with KOA showed a much faster rate of brain aging than healthy individuals.
The acceleration in brain aging was largely driven by the hippocampus and predicted memory decline and incident dementia during follow-up. Researchers identified a gene highly expressed in glial cells as a possible genetic factor for accelerated brain aging.
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ASIPP State Society Meetings | |
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How local jails ignore medical guidelines and contribute to the overdose crisis
People with opioid use disorder (OUD) are disproportionately represented in jails and prisons, with close to one in five reporting regular opioid use prior to incarceration. Oftentimes, it is the substance use itself leading to incarceration. While many have been conditioned to believe hitting rock bottom is necessary for recovery, this line of thinking has proven harmful and misunderstands that jails and prisons are in some way a therapeutic intervention.
This "jail as treatment center" ideology often centers anecdotes of recovery in carceral spaces while ignoring the incredible amounts of trauma, suffering, and premature death inflicted upon most who are detained. The focus on jails as a salve to the ongoing crisis of opioid-related overdoses dismisses far better alternatives and likewise ignores the structural harms of incarceration. The endorsement of carceral humanism -- or the possibility of a healing, gentler cage -- remains seductive to many but is badly misguided. These cognitive gymnastics launder coercive, punitive political structures to the public as interventions of care, framing jails as both necessary and desirable. This leaves the legal system as the primary intervention, despite its decades of abject failure, for what is decidedly a public health issue.
The Problem
The U.S. remains an outlier among peer nations for both its world-leading incarceration and overdose death rate. While elected officials remain unable or unwilling to address these deeply intertwined crises, overdose deaths continue to rise at alarming rates. In 2022, nearly 108,000 people lost their lives to drug overdoses in the U.S., with the majority stemming from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. The iron law of prohibition predicts that criminalization of drugs will not make them disappear but instead make the drug supply more unpredictable and potent. In the past 20 years, this has led to the ubiquity of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids coupled with increasing overdose rates and a sprawling carceral regime incapable of addressing it. Overdoses are even rising in jails and prisons themselves, more than doubling since 2000.
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- ASIPP Members Only Site Information - | |
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To log in for the first time you will need to click “forgot password” at the bottom of the login window.
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If you have problems logging into your account, click here.
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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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Woo Jun Shim , Skylar Remick , and Chong Kim, MD
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Long COVID can impact patients with a wide range of new, returning, or ongoing health symptoms, lasting for months to years despite recovery from the acute infection. One of the symptoms is headaches. Post-COVID-19 headaches can affect the quality of life for many patients, and as a result, the management and treatment of the symptoms have become important issues.
CASE REPORT: We present a case series of patients with varying presentations of post-COVID-19 symptoms, including headaches, who responded positively to the use of stellate ganglion blocks (SGBs).
CONCLUSIONS: We report the successful use of a right-sided SGB for varying post-COVID-19 symptoms.
KEY WORDS: Long COVID, post COVID, post-COVID headache, headaches, stellate ganglion block, case report
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RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL | |
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Yingcun Ma, MD, Yu Si Chen, Botao Liu, MD, and Lei Sima, MD
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Osteoarthritis of the knee (KOA) is the main cause of disability in elderly people. Patients with KOA may often not achieve adequate pain control even after receiving all treatment modalities.
OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to examine the efficacy of ultrasound-guided radiofrequency ablation (RFA) as a treatment for moderate and severe KOA.
STUDY DESIGN: A prospective randomized controlled study.
SETTING: The study was performed in the National Pain Management and Research Center of China-Japan Friendship Hospital.
METHODS: Eligible participants were over 50 years old and had suffered from chronic knee joint pain for more than 6 months, scoring at least 4 on a numeric rating scale (NRS) and grade III–IV according to the Kellgren-Lawrence classification system. The target nerve selection principle was as follows: the superomedial genicular nerve (SMGN) branch and inferior medial genicular nerve (IMGN) branch of the saphenous nerve for medial knee pain, the superolateral genicular nerve (SLGN) branch of the femoral nerve for lateral pain, and the SMGN, IMGN, and SLGN branches for total knee pain. The main outcomes were the NRS pain score (including the most severe pain), the average pain, and the proportion of patients who had reached pain reduction of more than 2 points. The secondary outcome was the Western Ontario McMaster University Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) score. RFA at 70ºC was performed for 120 seconds per patient in the RFA group, and knee nerve blocks were performed in the control group.
RESULTS: A total of 120 patients who met the inclusion criteria were selected in this study. The treatment groups showed significant differences in their mean NRS scores and worst pain during the first, third, and sixth months after treatment. There were significant differences in the mean WOMAC pain, physical function, and total scores between the treatment groups and over time. Between the treatment groups and over time, the mean WOMAC stiffness scores were not different. At each time point after treatment, the proportion of patients who needed analgesic drugs was significantly lower in the RFA group than in the control group. Univariate analysis showed that gender, age, pain course, and body mass index were not significantly correlated with the positive rate (NRS >= 2 score reduction). After we adjusted for multiple factors, the perceived beneficial effect of therapy was less when gonarthritis was more severe (P < 0.01).
LIMITATION: This study’s limitation is that it was performed in only one unit of the National Pain Management and Research Center.
CONCLUSIONS: Ultrasound-guided RFA applied to knee nerves can significantly reduce KOA pain, improve knee joint function, improve patient satisfaction, and provide a feasible, safe, and effective minimally invasive procedure for moderate to severe KOA in elderly patients.
KEY WORDS: Elderly, radiofrequency ablation, osteoarthritis of the knee, ultrasound-guided
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Leonardo Kapural, MD, PhD, Chengyuan Wu, MD, Aaron Calodney, MD, Julie Pilitsis, MD, PhD, Markus Bendel, MD, Erika Petersen, MD, Dawood Sayed, MD, Colleen Kelly, PhD, Rose Province-Azalde, MS, and Naresh P. Patel, MD
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Nonsurgical refractory back pain (NSRBP) is broadly defined as chronic refractory back pain in patients who have not had previous spine surgery and, because they are deemed inappropriate candidates for surgery, are reliant on conventional medical management (CMM), which often provides poor long-term outcomes. High-frequency spinal cord stimulation (10kHz SCS) has demonstrated high rates of pain relief and improvements in functioning in patients with NSRBP. However, despite the use of temporary trial stimulation to select patients who will respond to therapy, some patients fail to achieve long-term therapy response with permanent implants. Prediction analysis founded on patients’ baseline characteristics may enrich the appropriate selection of patients for permanent implantation.
OBJECTIVES: To examine baseline patient characteristics to predict long-term pain and functional responses to treatment with 10 kHz SCS for NSRBP.
STUDY DESIGN: A retrospective analysis of baseline patient characteristics as predictors of 24-month pain and functional outcomes from a previous multicenter randomized controlled trial of 10 kHz SCS in patients with NSRBP.
PATIENTS: Patients diagnosed with chronic, neuropathic, axial, low back pain refractory to CMM who had had no previous spine surgery, were deemed unsuitable candidates for it according to a spine surgeon, were implanted with 10kHz SCS and continued with CMM for up to 24 months.
METHODS: The baseline characteristics of and 24-month outcomes in the 125 implanted patients who participated in the NSRBP randomized controlled trial (RCT) were included in this analysis. The baseline characteristics included demographics, baseline pain on the visual analog scale (VAS), baseline function based on the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), mental health according to the patient health questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), neuropathic pain as measured by PainDETECT, and each patient’s temporary trial response. Patient response at 24 months was defined as absolute change from the baseline on the VAS and ODI, and each patient was also classified as a pain responder (achieving at least a 50% decrease in VAS pain score from the baseline) and a function responder (at least a 10-point decrease in ODI or a 24-month score of no more than 20 points). Multivariate prediction models based on regression and classification and regression tree (CART) techniques were developed using the response variables discussed above as the dependent variables and the baseline characteristics as the independent variables.
RESULTS: Different factors contributed to pain and functional outcomes. Patients presenting with neuropathic pain (PainDETECT >= 19) and female gender had higher odds of being pain responders to 10 kHz SCS therapy than did males and those without neuropathic pain. Both higher age and depression score (PHQ-9) independently reduced the odds that a patient would be an ODI responder. Years since diagnosis, the reason the patient was deemed unsuitable for spine surgery, and pain etiology were not predictive of pain or functional outcomes.
LIMITATIONS: A retrospective sub-analysis of a single pragmatic randomized controlled trial.
CONCLUSIONS: There may be an opportunity to increase pain relief and functional improvement if additional patient screening accompanies the temporary lead trial. The presence of neuropathic pain, female gender, age, and depression had some predictive value, but this analysis demonstrates the treatment efficacy of 10 kHz SCS across a wide range of patients with NSRBP.
KEY WORDS: Predictors of response, nonsurgical refractory back pain, biomarkers, pain management, spinal cord stimulation, 10 kHz SCS
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ASIPP is now in collaboration with Curi Medical Liability Program
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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.
Curi is a full-service advisory firm that serves physicians and their practices. Their valued advice is grounded in your priorities and elevated in your outcomes. They are driven by a deep understanding of your specific circumstances in medicine, business, and life. To read a few important points to keep in mind about the program, including discounts, administrative defense, cyber coverage, aggressive claims handling, and complimentary risk management CME activities, visit our website.
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Group Purchasing Organization Offer Better Pricing and Creates Added Value
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 independent physicians. 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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ASIPP, Fedora Billing,
and Revenue Cycle Management Partnership
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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up-to-date news related to you, your practice, and your patients!
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