A combined introduction and combined session will lead to his lecture titled A DEA Perspective of the Drug Abuse Epidemic, followed by a question/answer session.

 Mr. Rannazzisi is well-known in the DEA community. He has fought tirelessly for improvements in drug regulations. Among his many duties, he is responsible for overseeing and coordinating major pharmaceutical, precursor chemical, clandestine laboratory and synthetic drug investigations; the drafting and promulgating of regulations; and establishing drug production quotas.

ASIPP Board Review

Its not too late to attend the 2015 Board Review Course set for July 21-24 at the Palmer House in Chicago, IL.

This intensive and comprehensive high-quality review will prepare physicians appearing for the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS)-Subspecialty Pain Medicine examination and for the American Board of Interventional Pain Physicians (ABIPP)-Part 1 examination.

- A five-day review covering anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, psychology, ethics, interventional techniques, non-interventional techniques, controlled substances and practice management

- Unique lectures by experts in the field

- Extensive educational materials

Click HERE to register for Board Review Course.

 Controlled Substance Management and Coding, Compliance, and Practice Management

The ASIPP Comprehensive Review Courses and Exams in Controlled Substance Management and Coding, Compliance, and Practice Management will be held in Chicago, Illinois, on July 22-24, 2015.

Educational Objectives for Coding, Compliance, and Practice Management in IPM:

- Discuss documentation

- Review practice management topics

- Discuss coding and billing

- Examine compliance issues

CLICK HERE to register for Coding, Compliance and Practice Management Course 

Educational Objectives for Controlled Substance Management:

- Review basic science and core concepts

- Discuss pharmacology

- Identify clinical use and effectiveness

- Identify substance abuse

- Discuss topics with documentation, regulatory issues, legal issues, and ethical issues

CLICK HERE to register for Controlled Substance Management Course 

In addition to the review course, the American Board of Interventional Pain Physicians (for physicians) and the American Association of Allied Pain Management Professionals (for non-physicians) offers the opportunity for examination in order for physicians to obtain competency certification to and non-physicians to obtain associate certificates in Controlled Substance Management and Coding, Compliance, and Practice Management.

Click HERE to view Board Review brochure

Click HERE for Reservations at The Palmer House Hotel  

17 East Monroe Street, Chicago, IL 60603 | Phone: 312-726-7500

Ask Congress to Postpone Implementation of ICD-10-CM

The implementation date for ICD-10-CM is scheduled for Oct. 1, 2015. Did you know that the rest of the world will not be using ICD-10-CM making our data useless because it will not match other countries? And did you know that the implementation of ICD-10-CM will require physicians and their staff to transition to a system that makes use of 68,000 new codes?

Here is a wonderful example of how health IT expenses are as high as constructing a hospital. It appears that Duke and Partners is spending $1.4 billion dollars, 700 million each, on a University Medical Center in Louisiana costing $1.1 billion.

As we all know, physicians in the United States are already drowning in a regulatory tsunami. Now physicians face the threat of ICD-10-CM implementation with unfunded mandatory requirements. ICD-10 implementation is based on a liberal interpretation of a weak clause in HIPAA that actually only requires an update to ICD-9 and says nothing about ICD-10 or beyond. Further, the highly regulated health care industry has been handed over to an under-regulated health information technology (IT) industry and various other providers in health care.

Since Congress has been unwilling to delay the implementation day of Oct. 1, 2015 for ICD-10-CM, ASIPP began an aggressive campaign this week to reach out to legislators asking them to postpone ICD-10-CM by contacting multiple senators and representatives.

It is important that each physician and staff send a letter right away. We have very little time to convince Congress to act. We have set up a letter in Capwiz to make this easy for everyone.

• Click on the link for Word version of the letter if you prefer to send a personalized letter in the mail.
• Click on the this link to send your letter through Capwiz
• Click here ASIPP Fact Sheet on ICD-10-CM  
• Click HERE to read Manchikanti et al's Pain Physician Health Policy Review on ICD-10

This is an easy way to make a huge impact! Please commit to joining us in this important letter writing campaign asking Congress to delay this unfunded implementation. We need the full support and action from our members.

Join us in our efforts by sending your letters today!

CMS Releases Proposed CY 2016 Medicare Physician Payment Rule

On July 8, 2015, CMS released its calendar year (CY) 2016 proposed Medicare physician payment rule in prepublication form; the rule will be formally published in the July 15 Federal Register. Comments on the proposed rule are due on September 8, 2015.

The prepublication version of the proposed rule can be found HERE.

Click HERE to read the CMS fact sheet on the proposed rule

2016 ASC PROPOSED Payment Rates

HOPD 2016 PROPOSED Payment Rates

Labor Department Releases Guidance on Classification of Workers

The Labor Department has waded into a heated workplace issue with fresh guidance on how businesses should distinguish between employees and independent contractors.

So-called employee misclassification has become a hot topic recently as the economy has changed and hundreds of growing businesses such as Uber Technologies turn increasingly to contract workers.

On Wednesday, the administrator of the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division set out to address the confusion by officially releasing a 15-page memo of guidance-the division's first on the topic since President Barack Obama took office.

Wall Street Journal

Access to this article may be limited. 

CMS' Fraud Prevention System identifies $820M in improper Medicare payments

CMS' advanced analytics system, called the Fraud Prevention System, identified or prevented $820 million in inappropriate payments in the program's first three years, including $454 million in 2014 alone.

The system was created in 2010 by the Small Business Jobs Act, and it uses predictive analytics to identify questionable billing patterns.

Becker's Hospital Review

The myth of the vanishing medical practice

Medical groups are challenged, that much is true, but are they really disappearing in great numbers?

Perhaps not. The perception that federal regulations, including ICD-10, payment reform, Affordable Care Act provisions and even meaningful use are forcing small medical groups to align with hospitals for survival's sake may not be the whole picture.

Medical Practice insider

Meaningful use 'Catch-22' entangles surgery center doctors

The basis of the current meaningful use program, the HITECH Act of 2009, created certification standards and incentives for adopting EHR technology in physician office and hospital settings - but it did not account for EHRs used in ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs).

That distinction has made it hard for doctors such as gastroenterologists, who routinely perform procedures in ASCs, to satisfy meaningful use requirements. However, a bill making its way through Congress could help to resolve the disparity.

The Electronic Health Fairness Act - part of broader Medicare legislation (H.R. 2570) currently being marked up by the Senate Finance Committee after passing a voice vote in the House on June 17 - would change the HITECH Act to exempt procedures performed at ASCs from counting toward meaningful use requirements until a certification process can be put in place for EHRs used in ASCs.

Medical Practice Insider 

FDA: Narcotic Painkiller No Longer Available

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that Avinza (morphine sulfate; Pfizer) extended-release capsules have been discontinued.

Avinza is a CII opioid agonist indicated for the management of severe pain requiring daily, around-the-clock, long-term analgesia and for which alternative opioid therapies are inadequate in adults. Pfizer notified the FDA earlier this year regarding the discontinuation of Avinza. With the availability of Embeda (morphine sulfate and naltrexone HCl) extended-release capsules, the company had decided to remove its non-abuse deterrent morphine formulation from the market.

Avinza 30mg, 45mg, 60mg, 75mg, 90mg, and 120mg extended-release capsules have all been discontinued.

MPR

FDA Strengthens NSAID Warnings Regarding Heart Attack and Stroke Risk

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is strengthening an existing label warning that non-aspirin nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) increase the risk of a heart attack or stroke.

Based on the comprehensive review of new safety information, the FDA is requiring updates to the drug labels of all prescription NSAIDs. As is the case with current prescription NSAID labels, the Drug Facts labels of over-the-counter (OTC) non-aspirin NSAIDs already contain information on heart attack and stroke risk. The FDA will also request updates to the OTC non-aspirin NSAID Drug Facts labels.

E-MPR

Docs Flock to Free Photo App Figure 1

A free app for sharing photos of medical curiosities, diagnostic evidence in puzzling cases, or illustrations that show successful procedures has grown into a global archive.

Named "Figure 1" and available at https://figure1.com the app is frequently described as an Instagram for doctors. The site also has a feature that mimics radiological scans by letting users take and post 200 frames of an image.

The company says that 92% of its registered users are health-care professionals, a third of them physicians and medical students.Lay people can also register and see the photos on the site. 

HCP Live