NOVEMBER MEETINGS

UPCOMING MEETINGS

2017 ASIPP Washington Legislative Trip Set for Sept 12-13, 2017  

At no other time in the history of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians has it been more important for you, as members, to get involved in our advocacy efforts. Our specialty has been gravely affected by drastic and severe coverage cuts. These cuts so radical, they have hurt more than just our bottom lines; some practices and surgery centers have been forced to close their doors.  

The election of President Trump and his appointment of Representative Tom Price as Health and Human Services Secretary and Seema Verma to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have given us some hope and an opportunity to achieve some of our goals, and possibly reverse these cuts retroactively and reinstate the previous reimbursement or even improve reimbursement for 2018. 

Now is our chance! Let your voices be heard! 

We have scheduled a legislative conference September 12 and 13. To participate in this conference, you must to be in Washington on Tuesday, September 12 in order to attend the preparation session. Wednesday, September 13, we will head to Capitol Hill to hear speeches and meet with Senators and Representatives. Some appointments may continue through Thursday. If you would like to leave on Wednesday, please do not plan on leaving before 6 pm.  

Each member is expected to visit two senators and one member of Congress for a total of three visits.  

ASIPP will be booking a block of rooms for those who choose to attend. You will be responsible for travel expenses. 

Please let us know as soon as possible if you will be attending so that we can begin making the appointments. Contact Kasi Stunson: [email protected].

CURRENT NEWS

FDA Regulates Adipose Tissue Based Stem Cell Clinics: FDA also plans to help consumers capitalize on advances in science by softening some regulations

The FDA issued historic statement on August 28, 2017, to define its regulatory policies on adipose based stem cell therapies. The FDA also is taking strong action on some stem cell clinics.

 

The FDA has taken action on 2 adipose cell based clinics, US Stem Cell Clinic with a warning letter sent to Kristin Comella in Florida with multiple issues including negative outcomes in patients including blindness. The second clinic which was inspected was Stem Immune, Inc., associated with Cell Surgical Network of California.

 

The FDA also indicated and has suggested in a blog post by Gottlieb, FDA commissioner, that it may soften some regulations of stem cell treatments:

How FDA Plans to Help Consumers Capitalize on Advances in Science

 

Historic statement from FDA

Statement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D. on the FDA’s new policy steps and enforcement efforts to ensure proper oversight of stem cell therapies and regenerative medicine

 

 

Warning letter to Kristin Comella

 

FDA acts to remove unproven, potentially harmful treatment used in ‘stem cell’ centers targeting vulnerable patients

 

 

The news has already hit newspapers.

 

F.D.A. Cracks Down on ‘Unscrupulous’ Stem Cell Clinics

  Press Release from Cell Surgical Network



One of the commentators posed multiple questions.

 

Top 6 questions as FDA takes new shot at stem cell clinics

ASIPP Offers Support in Wake of Hurricane Harvey - Your Help is Needed

 

As you must be aware, Hurricane Harvey has devastated much of Southeast Texas with severe flooding. The city of Houston got three times as much rain in just 48 hours as was pumped out of New Orleans during all of Hurricane Katrina. At least 38 people have died in Southeast Texas from the storm, and more than 32,000 were forced into shelters. The need for aid is monumental.

 

You can join the rebuilding efforts coming together across the country and around the world to help the victims of this devastating flood.

 

The ASIPP Relief Fund is a non-profit 501 (c) (3) organization, tax ID#61-1399555 and 100% of your donation will go to national organizations leading the Hurricane Harvey relief operations.

 

Please click here to fill out your donation form   and lend your hand to those terribly in need.

 

 

 

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Vanila M. Singh, M.D., MACM, as Chief Medical Officer for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The Chief Medical Officer serves as the primary medical advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Health on the development and implementation of HHS-wide public health policy recommendations. The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health includes 11 core public health offices, including the Office of the Surgeon General, 12 advisory committees, and 10 regional offices.

Dr. Laxmaiah Manchikanti, Chairman of the Board and CEO of ASIPP, stated that "Dr. Singh has been a long-time member of ASIPP and is a great asset to the field of interventional pain management." Additionally, Dr. Singh has been active in national medical organizations, serving as the Vice Chair of the National Physicians Council on Health Policy; an editorial board member of the Pain Physician Journal for the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians; and a member of the California Medical Association’s (CMA) House of Delegates. She also served on the CMA’s Council on Ethical, Legal and Judicial Affairs, and more recently, as a member of its Subcommittee on Health Information Technology.

We congratulate Dr. Singh on her appointment and wish her the best in her new service to the government and medical field.

(below) HHS Secretary, Thomas E. Price, MD, welcomed Dr. Singh to her new position with an August 25th Tweet.

HHS.GOV >

Opioid–Benzo Combination Still Plaguing the Elderly

Denver—Up to 25% of commercially insured people who are prescribed opioids are placed on benzodiazepines simultaneously, despite federal safety alerts that the combination can cause potentially lethal respiratory depression, according to data presented at the 2017 Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy Annual Meeting.

PAIN MEDICINE NEWS >

Device-Specific ICD Codes Needed According to Researchers

Legislators should assign International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes to all medical devices, coinvestigators in a recent opinion piece in JAMA urged. The resulting administrative data that would be amassed could help identify device-related adverse events more accurately than is currently possible, they argued.

CLINICAL PAIN ADVISOR >

AMA Module Helps Integrate Pharmacists Into Medical Practice

HealthDay News — A new American Medical Association (AMA) education module has been developed to help embed clinical pharmacists within a medical practice.

A free online AMA STEPS Forward module explores how to determine the pharmacy needs for a physician's health care team and how to identify the type of support needed for a practice. The module provides 6 steps for integration of pharmacists into the health care team.

CLINICAL PAIN ADVISOR >

Methylnaltrexone Effective for

Opioid-Induced Constipation Relief

A daily subcutaneous injection of methylnaltrexone provides effective relief from opioid-induced constipation (OIC) in patients with chronic non-cancer pain, according to a phase 3 open-label trial published in Pain Medicine .

In this study, researchers examined efficacy and tolerability results of a once-daily 12 mg subcutaneous injection of methylnaltrexone in adults with chronic non-cancer pain (n=1034) for OIC relief . Approximately half of the study population (n= 496; 48.0%) received methylnaltrexone for ≥44 weeks.

CLINICAL PAIN ADVISOR >

FDA Evaluating Prescription Opioids in Pediatric Cough Medicines

The FDA has announced that it is “carefully evaluating” prescription cough suppressants for children, according to a statement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD.

“There are few more common decisions that parents and providers are asked to make than the question of how to appropriately treat a child’s cough and cold symptoms,” Dr. Gottlieb said in the statement. “Sometimes symptoms can be severe enough that prescription medication is needed, but some of these medications pose their own risks—especially for younger children—because they may contain opioids.”

PAIN MEDICINE NEWS >

Deprescribing: New Concept or a Familiar Drumbeat?

Much has been written and discussed regarding polypharmacy, especially in older adults, as well as its increased risk for adverse drug reactions. Over the last two decades, explicit and implicit criteria for potentially inappropriate medications have been developed and implemented to address this worrisome burden. As a recent editorial ¹ in JAMA Internal Medicine succinctly articulated, the art and science behind systematically discontinuing targeted and unnecessary medications has come.

PAIN MEDICINE NEWS >

FDA Updates Naloxegol Labeling for Opioid-Induced

Constipation to Include Prior Cancer Indication

The FDA has updated the indication of naloxegol (Movantik, AstraZeneca) tablets for the treatment of opioid-induced constipation (OIC) in adult patients with chronic noncancer pain to include patients with chronic pain related to prior cancer or its treatment who do not require frequent (e.g., weekly) opioid dosage escalation.

PAIN MEDICINE NEWS >

FDA cracks down on stem cell clinics offering unapproved treatments

The FDA is taking aim at stem cell clinics using unproven and potentially hazardous treatments.

As part of the crackdown, the FDA seized vials of an unapproved vaccine from San Diego-based StemImmune. The treatments had been injected into cancer patients with potentially compromised immune systems at California Stem Cell Treatment Centers in Rancho Mirage and Beverly Hills.



The live vaccinia virus vaccine, which could cause swelling of the heart, was injected both intravenously and directly into patient's tumors. The vaccine is typically used for patients at risk for contracting smallpox and has not been approved as a cancer treatment.

BECKER'S HOSPITAL REVIEW >

How technology can improve ASC billing reimbursement as healthcare dives into value-based care

Technology has paved the way for more procedures to transition into the outpatient arena, and the growth of ambulatory surgery centers has surged in the last several years. With the additional business, surgery centers can accumulate more revenue.

"The evolution of value-based care will benefit ASCs in a meaningful way. If payers begin to see cost savings and better surgical outcomes when services are performed in an ASC setting, ASCs should see an increase in volume. It is also getting easier for surgery centers to dive into their data which allows them to make better decisions as it relates to the type of cases they are bringing in. Today, with the ability to tailor data with established technologies, surgery centers are expected to know their numbers and results," says Lindsay Joseph, executive vice president of operations for National Medical Billing Services.

BECKER'S HOSPITAL REVIEW >

How Texas hospit al s are faring amid Hurricane Harvey's catastrophic flooding: 6 things to know Monday

Hurricane Harvey battered the east coast of Texas Friday evening as a Category 4 storm, creating storm surges and flooding comparable to Hurricane Katrina, in which 1,836 people were killed in 2005.

The unprecedented flooding in cities like Houston after Hurricane Harvey made landfall pushed area health facilities to institute precautionary measures, including evacuations, to protect patients and staff from the storm. The National Weather Service said Sunday some areas may experience up to 50 inches of rain by the end of the week, USA Today reports.

Here are six developments in the aftermath of the storm.

BECKER'S HOSPITAL REVIEW >

Average OR time in ASCs versus hospitals: 5 key facts

CDC data found patients spend less time, on average, in an ASC operating room compared to a hospital's OR.

Here are five key facts:

BECKER'S ASC >

Addicts: How can doctors safely manage their pain?

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A common -- and in this case, emergency -- surgical procedure nearly sent one Staten Islander, who is in long-term recovery, back into the throws of addiction.



Cristina B., a 29-year-old Pleasant Plains resident, has been in active recovery for three years following a life-changing needle prick.

Unable to find oxycodone "blues" after the crackdown on opioid painkillers, Christina turned to heroin to prevent the inevitable, intense withdrawal. She had been taking nearly a dozen of the 30-milligram pills a day.

SILIVE.COM >

Opioid epidemic yet to be declared official emergency

(CNN) - Despite President Donald Trump's announcement that the opioid crisis is "a national emergency" two weeks ago, there has been no formal declaration from the administration.

At the time, Trump said, "we're going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis. It is a serious problem the likes of which we have never had."

NBC MONTANA >

Limiting Opioids Alone Is Not A Sustainable Pain Care Plan

Canada and the U.S. have seen alarming increases in opioid prescribing and in opioid-related overdose deaths. Prince's tragic opioid-related death further highlights this international public health problem.

Indeed, the spectre -- and reality -- of opioid limits have sent shockwaves through segments of the chronic pain community. The vast majority of individuals prescribed opioids take them responsibly, yet are now subject to laws created to prevent illicit opioid use.

HUFFINGTON POST >

HHS establishing medical shelter to aid those affected by Hurricane Harvey

Thousands of Texans sheltering at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston will have medical care on-site through a 250-bed Federal Medical Station established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) at the request of the State Department of Health. The Federal Medical Station is scheduled to be operational Wednesday.

HHS also is helping evacuate hospital patients to healthcare facilities outside the impacted area.

HHS.GOV >

CMS To Revise Intercostal Neuralgia LCD

Once again, we are seeing what can be accomplished when action is taken at the grassroots level! 

After we sent a letter from the ASIPP membership, as well as the state societies of interventional pain physicians of Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Connecticut, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, CMS has made the decision to revise the LCD to include intercostal neuralgia. Their decision came in a letter copied below: 

Dear Dr. Manchikanti,

 

As requested, we will add ICD-10-CM code G54.8 which should represent intercostal neuralgia to the referenced LCD. The revised LCD will be published for October 1, 2017 due to coding changes related to the annual ICD-10-CM code update. However, the effective date for the aforementioned ICD-10-CM code will be retroactive to the original effective date of the LCD (i.e., May 1, 2017) which will be noted in the "Revision History Explanation".

 

Thank you for your interest in the Medicare Program.

Valerie

 

Valerie R. Krushinsky

Medical Policy Analyst

Medical Policy Unit

National Government Services, Inc.

 

So as you see once again, the efforts of ASIPP members and interventional pain physicians across the country have made a major difference and resulted in change that greatly impacts our specialty. 

 

JULY ISSUE NOW AVAILABLE!

Interventional Pain Management Reports is an Open Access online journal, a peer-reviews journal dedicated to the publication of case reports, brief commentaries and reviews and letters to the editor. It is a peer-reviewed journal written by and directed to an audience of interventional pain physicians, clinicians and basic scientists with an interest in interventional pain management and pain medicine. 

We would like to invite you to submit research case reports, brief commentaries and reviews to Interventional Pain Management Reports Journal . Your article will be published ‘ FREE’ of charge. 

Led by Editor in Chief: Kenneth Candido, MD, Chairman and Professor, Department of Anesthesiology , Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago, IPM Reports focuses on the promotion of excellence in the practice of interventional pain management and clinical research. 

Interventional Pain Management Reports is an official publication of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians (ASIPP) and is a sister publication of Pain Physician . Interventional Pain Management Reports Interventional Pain Management Reports is an open access journal, available online with free full manuscripts.  

The benefits of publishing in an open access journal that has a corresponding print edition journal are:  

So submit today your:

Case Reports

Technical Reports

Editorials

Short Perspectives

 Click HERE to read the Instructions for Authors for article submission  

Click HERE to submit a manuscript

 The NIPM-QCDR, a new offering from ASIPP®, is specifically tailored for interventional pain physicians. Your practice can use the NIPM-QCDR to fulfill the 2017 requirements of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS).