Make plans today to attend the 2015 Board Review Course set for July 21-24 at the Palmer House in Chicago, IL. Register by June 19 to received discounted room rate.

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

Educational Objectives for Controlled Substance Management:

ASIPP has strongly opposed and continues to oppose allowing CRNAs to perform chronic pain management services. This expansion of services is deleterious to the American health care system and its survival, resulting in unnecessary procedures, duplication of services, and potentially major disasters. 
 

In fact, ASIPP has requested a survey by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) through Congressman Ed Whitfield and Senators David Vitter and Richard Colburn requesting a study on "the training and qualification of nurse anesthetists to perform interventional pain management procedures." Instead, GAO sidestepped the issue and performed a study on how nurse anesthetists billed for a few chronic pain procedures, which was extremely disappointing

 

Click HERE to read the letter we sent Monday to RaeAnn Capehart, MD, Contractor Medical Director for Novitas Solutions, Inc regarding the CRNA scope of practice issue.

 

Lab Nears Settlement Over Pricey Medicare Drug Tests

 

The nation's largest drug-testing laboratory, Millennium Health LLC, is negotiating a major settlement over allegations it billed the federal government for unnecessary tests, the latest sign of a crackdown on the fast-growing industry.

 

Settlement talks come as the federal Medicare agency is proposing broad changes to the way it pays for urine drug tests that could save taxpayers money and cut into drug testers' revenue. Such tests can search for drugs including narcotic pain pills and illegal substances such as angel dust and club drugs like MDMA.

 

The potential settlement with the federal government could call for the San Diego company to pay about $250 million, according to four people familiar with the negotiations.

 

Wall Street Journal

 

Access to this article may be limited.

When Treating Pain Brings a Criminal Indictment

Lessons from the recent acquittal of a doctor and nurse-practitioner accused of overprescribing drugs.

Wall Street Journal

 

Access to this article may be limited.

Doctors call for two-year grace period for ICD-10 implementation

 

With less than four months to go before the deadline for implementing the ICD-10 code set, physicians Monday agreed to seek a two-year grace period for physicians to avoid financial disruptions to facilitate a smoother transition that would allow physicians to continue providing quality care to their patients.

 

Physicians at the 2015 AMA Annual Meeting passed policy calling on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) not to withhold claim payments based on coding errors, mistakes or malfunctions in the system for two years directly following implementation. 

 

Related policy pushes the AMA to advocate for physician voices to be part of the group that manages the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Currently, the four cooperating parties that manage ICD code sets are the Centers for Disease Control National Centers for Health Statistics, CMS, the American Hospital Association and the American Health Information Management Association. A physician group is necessary in these conversations because none of the current groups "represent providers who have licensed authority to define, diagnose, describe and document patient conditions and treatments."

 

AMA Wire

Senators Told Health IT Needs Better Rules of the Road

Standardization could help drive health information exchange, experts said

Documents Reveal Secret Legal Battle Over Medicare Overbilling

 

 Federal officials have spent years locked in a secret legal battle with UnitedHealth Group, the nation's biggest Medicare Advantage insurer, after a government audit detected widespread overbilling at one of the company's health plans, newly released records show.

 

The audit found that Medicare paid too much for nearly half of a sample of patients enrolled at PacifiCare of Washington state, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group. The audit was part of a cache of heavily redacted documents released to the Center for Public Integrity through a court order in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

 

Matt Burns, a UnitedHealth spokesman, declined comment on the audit documents. However, during more than three years of confidential - and previously undisclosed - negotiations, the insurer argued that the audit was unfair and the results were flat out wrong.

  

NPR

 

Obama Wants to Pick the Clintons' Neighbors

 

Bill and Hillary Clinton are popular with black voters, but that doesn't mean the couple wants to live around them. And vice versa. This reality troubles President Obama, though his remedy is what's really troubling.

When the Clintons went house-hunting in 1999, neighborhood diversity wasn't much of a priority. The family settled on a five-bedroom Colonial in Chappaqua, N.Y., a lush suburb north of New York City where the population is more than 90% white, less than 1% black and multimillion-dollar homes abound. No one has produced evidence of racial discrimination against buyers who can afford homes in Chappaqua and other wealthy enclaves of Westchester County, where the town is located. But monochrome residential housing patterns upset the sensibilities of officials in Mr. Obama's Department of Housing and Urban Development.

 

 

Wall Street Journal

 

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Insurers Playing a Game of Thrones

 

Big U.S. insurers are courting one another for possible multibillion-dollar deals. How they pair off could have significant implications for the managed-care industry, its individual and corporate customers, and U.S. medical providers.

 

Each potential target has strengths in different parts of the managed-care puzzle. For Humana Inc.,its fast-growing business covering Medicare beneficiaries could be attractive to several suitors. Aetna Inc.has forged relationships with health systems that use its information-technology services, which could benefit rivals. And, Cigna Corp.brings international customers and close ties with employers big and small.

 

These companies, along with UnitedHealth Group Inc.and Anthem Inc.,have been talking to each other about possible deals, with UnitedHealth approaching Aetna, Anthem talking with Cigna, and Humana exploring a sale, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

 

 

Wall Street Journal