WEBINAR FEE: $195   

WEBINAR DATE: December 10, 2015

TIME: 11:00am-12:30am CDT

LENGTH: 90 Minutes

SPEAKER: Marvel Hammer, RN, BS, CPC, CCS-P, ACS-PM, CPCO 

 

Get up to speed with the coding changes that are coming in 2016 for Interventional Pain Management practices. You are responsible for reporting the services correctly so you don't risk delays, denials, or incorrect payments for your coding and billing. Learn to navigate coding, billing and compliance changes for 2016 in this 90-minute webinar with coding expert Marvel J. Hammer, RN, CPC, CCS-P, ACS-PM, CPCO. 

Webinar highlights:

• 64461-64463: When is a paravertebral injection not coded as a paravertebral facet joint injection?
• How will providers report spinal accessory nerve injections in 2016?
• What NEW 2016 CPT Section Guidelines will effect facet joint nerve radio frequency ablation coding?
• Get the published clarification, once and for all, on compliant CPT coding for neurolytic destruction of paravertebral facet joint nerves
• What is the status of reporting fluoroscopy used with the 62310-62319 code set for 2016?  Were there changes in CPT?
• In 2016, what changes in spinal cord neurostimulator programming requirements?
• What are the CPT changes for Prolonged E/M services in 2016?  What is CPT's definition of qualified health care professional versus clinical staff?
• Find out if there are any changes in 2016 for reporting presumptive or definitive drug testing
• Where are we at in terms of surviving the Oct 1st implementation?
• What is CMS proposing for coding changes for 2016 for presumptive and definitive drug testing?
• Review 2015 mid-year and 2016 HCPCS drug code changes
• Find out pain management coding questions that has been addressed in the past year by CPT Assistant
• What will be the "hot topics" on the OIG Work Plan for 2016?

Your practice depends on your coding know-how, and there's no better way to make sure you're the "go-to" coder than to be ready for the New Year. Make sure you're on top of the latest changes by attending this must-have event.  

 

Note: Extra time will be devoted to a question and answer session at the end of the webinar presentation.

CLICK HERE to register

Why the U.S. Pays More Than Other Countries for Drugs

Norway, an oil producer with one of the world's richest economies, is an expensive place to live. A Big Mac costs $5.65. A gallon of gasoline costs $6. But one thing is far cheaper than in the U.S.: prescription drugs. Drug prices in the U.S. are shrouded in mystery, obscured by confidential rebates, multiple middlemen and the strict guarding of trade secrets. But for certain drugs---those paid for by Medicare Part B---prices are public. By stacking these against pricing in three foreign health systems, as discovered in nonpublic and public data, The Wall Street Journal was able to pinpoint international drug-cost differences and what lies behind them.

Wall Street Journal

Access to article may be limited.

 

Safely Prescribing Opioids in an Era of Overdose

 

The number of opioid prescriptions filled in US pharmacies has tripled since the early 1990s, skyrocketing from 76 million in 1991 to 219 million in 2001. 1   During this time period, emergency department visits from opioid misuse or abuse and opioid-related drug overdose deaths also rose sharply.

Continuing the upward trajectory, emergency department visits attributable to opioids increased from 600,000 to more than 1.2 million from 2004 to 2010, and overdose deaths have quadrupled from 4000 to more than 12,000 annually from 1999 to 2010, according to data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. 2

 

 

Clinical Pain Advisor

Turing's $750 Pill Daraprim Has $1 Competitor

 

The outrageous $750 a pill price of pyrimethamine (Daraprim/ Turing) could soon be undercut by the appearance of a new compound selling for a dollar a pill.

Express Scripts, a pharmacy benefits manager based in St. Louis, MO, announced today that it is working with Imprimis, a San Diego, CA compounder to combine pyrimethamine with leucovorin to market a new product, one due to be available this week.

 

MD news

Marijuana Use and Child Physical Abuse: Is There an Association?

Laws allowing physicians to prescribe marijuana for medicinal purposes have been enacted in 23 states and the District of Columbia, 1   and 4 states have passed laws legalizing recreational marijuana. Although the sale and use of marijuana is still illegal under federal law, polls show most Americans now favor legalizing marijuana. 2,3   As marijuana use becomes more prevalent, some are concerned about how parents' marijuana use affects their children.

Bridget Freisthler, PhD, a professor with the University of California-Los Angeles Department of Social Welfare, and colleagues from the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Oakland, California, recently reported findings from a study that assessed the relationship between current marijuana use, the local availability of marijuana via dispensaries, and abusive or neglectful parenting. 4

 

 

Clinical Pain Advisor

West VA board drops Infection Control Case

 

 Roland F. Chalifoux Jr.,DO has  been cleared of any wrong doing by the West Virginia Board of Osteopathic Medicine regarding the false and misleading allegations in July 2014 that he acted unprofessionally and created an outbreak of Hep B, C, and HIV in the Ohio Valley.

 

Click here to read court case

 

Address Mental Health Barriers in Chronic Pain

 

Painful chronic conditions often are accompanied by equally debilitating comorbidities such as depression, substance use disorders, and suicidal ideation. Unfortunately, there are significant barriers to accessing mental health services that need to be addressed to adequately treat these complex patients.

That was the advice from Martin Cheatle, PhD, who is director of the Pain and Chemical Dependency Program at the Center for Studies of Addiction at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

 

The Impact of Risk Reduction Initiatives on Chronic Opioid Use

 

Exposing clinicians to a multifaceted risk-reduction initiative significantly shifts prescribing practices away from high-dose chronic opioid therapy, according to a study published in the Journal of Pain.

Such interventions are sorely needed; prescription opioid sales in the United States have tripled since 1999, though the amount of chronic pain reported by patients remains unchanged. The explosion in opioid use was accompanied by repercussions - nearly 2 million American teens and adults either abused or were dependent on opioid pain relievers in 2013, and the number of overdoses had quadrupled to over 16,000.

 

 

Clinical Pain Advisor

The Majority of Opioid Abusers Are Not in the Age Group You Might Suspect

 

Younger patients may get a bad rep for misusing prescription medications, but they do not make up the prominent group who get the interventions.

One of the major concerns associated with prescription drugs is the risk of misuse and abuse. The addictive properties of opioids make the analgesics potentially dangerous. Researchers from New York University's Center for Drug Use and HIV Research (CDUHR) and NYU's School of Medicine (NYUSoM) examined trends in opioid treatment programs in New York City with a focus on older patients and they found that there has been a major increase in admissions.

"Most notably, we found a pronounced age trend in those utilizing opioid treatment programs from 1996 to 2012, with adults aged 50 and older becoming the majority treatment population," principle investigator Benjamin Han, MD, MPH, an instructor at NYUSoM, said in a news release. 

 

 

HCP Live

How to Protect Your Practice From a Drug Diversion Investigation

 

Healthcare providers got an insider's look at how law-enforcement officials conduct drug diversion investigations, learning how to avoid unintentional mistakes that may garner unwanted scrutiny from regulatory bodies and how to better protect their practices.

Two members of the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators, Marc Gonzalez, PharmD, and Steven Louie, JD, hosted an interactive session detailing actual cases in which "pill mills" were busted, letting clinicians enact scenarios in which they assume the role of the drug diversion investigator. 

 

 

Clinical Pain Advisor

Reducing our own pain is also reducing empathy for pain in others

 

The ability to feel the pain of others is based on neurobiological processes which underlie pain experience in oneself. Using innovative methods, an international research team headed by psychologist Claus Lamm from the University of Vienna could show that a reduction of self-experienced pain leads to a reduction in empathy for pain in others as well. The researchers assumed that this effect is underpinned by endogenous opioids and published these results in a recent paper in the peer-reviewed journal "PNAS". 

In a study with more than 100 participants, Claus Lamm and his interdisciplinary team used an innovative experimental trick, the so-called placebo analgesia effect, to close an explanatory gap in the understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms of empathy. Experimentally manipulating self-experienced pain, they tested whether this manipulation also leads to an equivalent change in empathy for pain. "Only this trick enabled us to conclude with higher certainty that empathy relies on simulation", explains Claus Lamm from the Department of Basic Psychological Research and Research Methods at the University of Vienna. 

 

MedienPortal

8 Ways to Prevent Pain During Holiday Shopping

 

The holiday season may not bring thoughts of aches and pains to mind, but as Black Friday nears, the American Chiropractic Association encourages the public to approach holiday shopping with the same care they would for an athletic event in order to prevent strain.

"Our bodies have the capacity to do a little more than we normally do," said Scott Bautch, DC, of ACA's Council on Occupational Health in a press release. "But our bodies do not adapt very well to doing a lot more than we normally do. Since the added demands of this season can stress the capacity of our bodies, we need to do everything we can to help ourselves. Eat right, drink plenty of water, stretch, exercise and take a few minutes to slow down and reflect on what the season is all about."

 

 

Clinical Pain Advisor