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American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians | August 7, 2019
Just 2 days left to Pre-Register for the Ohio-Kentucky Annual Meeting
 
The Ohio and Kentucky Societies of Interventional Pain Physicians have planned a great agenda over 2.5 days on August 9-11. The meeting is designated for 17.25 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™.
 
We will accept onsite registrations.
 
After a day of learning, we will go to the Great American Baseball Park near The Westin to watch the Cincinnati Reds-Chicago Cubs game Saturday evening. It’s sure to be lots of fun and a great matchup.
 
Reds/Cubs Tickets are just $83 and may be purchased when you register for the meeting. If you have already registered and would like to purchase tickets, email your order to [email protected] . Hurry, tickets are limited.
 
 
Click her e to view the program.

Join the AMA to help us keep our seat in the House of Delegates

The American Medical Association (AMA) requires all societies to requalify for membership in the AMA House of Delegates (HOD) every five years. In order for ASIPP to retain our seat, the AMA requires that 20% of ASIPP’s physician members also be members of the AMA. Unfortunately, ASIPP is at risk of losing representation in the AMA because we have fallen below the 20% membership minimum threshold.

Membership in the AMA gives us a voice in shaping policy that affects our practice and patients.
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.

We strongly encourage you to join the AMA today to help us keep our seat at the table. Right now, you can become a member and pay only half the dues.

The stronger our membership, the more we can advance issues that are important to our specialty including improving the Medicare Quality Payment Program, reducing administrative burdens and ensuring accurate coding and reimbursement of our services.

Thank you for supporting ASIPP!

Click HERE to join today and pay only half price! 
2019 ASIPP Washington Legislative Meeting and Capitol Hill visits set for October 15-16, 2019  
Now is our chance!
Let your voices be heard!  
 
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. Despite o ur ongoing, tireless efforts, with some improvements, our specialty continues to be affected by coverage and reimbursement issues. These issues continue to hurt more than just our bottom lines; some practices and surgery centers have been forced to close their doors or sell to others.
 
Our legislative issues include:
  •  Non-coverage by Medicare Advantage
  •  Dual eligibility with Medicaid not paying 20%
  •  Centene acquisition of Well Care
  •  Onerous audits and investigations
  • Incorporation of best practices in Pain Management
  • Support for preauthorization for Medicare Advantage
  • Support for H.R.3107 - Improving Seniors' Timely Access to Care Act of 2019 (preauthorization bill)

We have scheduled a legislative conference for October 15-16, 2019. To participate in this conference, you must to be in Washington DC on Tuesday, October 15 in order to attend the preparation session Tuesday evening. Then, on Wednesday, October 16, we will head to Capitol Hill for breakfast and congressional speeches. You will be able to fly out late on Wednesday evening. 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 has booked a block of rooms at the beautiful Melrose Georgetown Hotel, less than a mile from the Hill. 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. Please bring your family, friends and employees.
 
It will be fun! If you have never participated before, just ask those who have. Not only is this a necessary and important meeting, but it is also an exciting and fun experience.
 
Please contact Melinda Martin, ASIPP Director of Operations, at [email protected] if you are interested in attending.
 
CDC: Overdose Death Rates Now Highest in Cities
But rural women are still dying at higher rates than urban women
 
Drug overdose death rates were highest in the nation's cities in 2016 and 2017, reversing a trend of higher per-capita overdose mortality in less populated rural counties during the previous 8 years, the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reported Friday.
The age-adjusted drug overdose death rate in 2017 was 22 per 100,000 population in urban counties versus 20 per 100,000 in rural counties in the most recent analysis of data from the CDC's National Vital Statistics System ( NVSS).
Drug overdose death rates have risen dramatically during the last two decades in both rural and urban areas of the U.S., but during 2014-2017, the rate of increase in urban counties was more than double that seen in rural counties (average increase 17% per year, compared to a rural county increase of 9% per year).
 
Book Your Room at The Peabody Memphis for September Midsouth Meeting by Aug. 19
 
The first meeting of the Midsouth Societies of Interventional Pain Physicians will be September 20-22 in Memphis. IPM: Issues, Pitfalls and Opportunities is for physicians and midlevel practitioners for the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee.
 
The discounted room rate at The Peabody ends Aug. 19 and space is limited. Reserve your room today!

Click here for meeting registration and hotel booking information. 

Click Below to view:
The Truth About Painkiller Addiction
Amid an opioid crisis, authorities overestimated the danger of prescription painkillers—while doing too little to identify patients at risk of addiction.
 
In the early days of the opioid crisis, public officials had reasons to blame it on all the pills. News stories featured people who, to the shock of their neighbors and loved ones, had died unexpectedly of a drug overdose. In an emergency, authorities do what they can with the tools at hand. In tightening controls on doctors who prescribed pain relievers, state and federal agencies were focusing on the aspect of the problem most subject to regulatory intervention.
To some degree, that strategy worked. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overdose deaths declined by about 5 percent in 2018—a dip attributable almost exclusively to fewer deaths from oxycodone, hydrocodone, and other prescription opioids. (Fentanyl deaths are still climbing.) Now that the fever of the opioid crisis may be breaking , Americans can revisit some of the stories we have told ourselves about the role of prescription medication in the crisis.

Oklahoma urges judge in historic opioid case to deliver $17.2 billion verdict against Johnson & Johnson

In its final filing of a case being watched around the country, the state of Oklahoma implored a judge to deliver a record $17.2 billion verdict against Johnson & Johnson for flooding the state with opioids. It said the drug company created a crisis that killed more than 6,000 Oklahomans, destroyed families and wreaked havoc on communities.
"The source of this crisis is the flood of prescription opioids that has inundated Oklahoma for the past two decades," attorneys for the state wrote in its more than 700-page court filing. "It was brought into being by the pharmaceutical industry, including Defendants. The harm it has wrought, and the threat it continues to pose to the health, safety and welfare of the State, make it the worst nuisance Oklahoma has ever known."
Both parties entered their proposed findings of fact on Wednesday, essentially making one final pitch to Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman about the merits of their arguments following seven weeks of trial.
Balkman is expected to deliver his ruling later this month.

CNN
June 2020 ABIPP EXAMS
AND COMPETENCY EXAMS
June 13 - June 14, 2020 | Memphis, TN
 
The American Board of Interventional Pain Physicians ( ABIPP ) has developed certification programs that recognize accepted levels of knowledge and expertise in the interventional pain management
profession, with the goal of improved patient care. Hundreds of qualified physicians have made the commitment to become ABIPP certified.
ABIPP now offers the only competency certification program for regenerative medicine.
 
For complete information about the examination requirements and to obtain an application packet, visit www.abipp.org or call 270-554-9412 x4217 or by email at [email protected].
 
June 13
ABIPP Part I  
Combined CSM/CCPM Exam for ABIPP Path
Competency Exam in Controlled Substance Management
Competency Exam in Coding, Compliance, and
Practice Management

June 13-14
ABIPP Part II  
Regenerative Medicine Competency Exam
Endoscopic Lumbar Decompression Competency Exam

June 14
ABIPP Competency Exam


939 Ridge Lake Blvd. | Memphis, TN 38120
 
New ‘Consumer-Friendly’ Pricing Info; How a Health System Slashed Adverse Events

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) wants to require hospitals to improve price transparency by posting "consumer-friendly" cost information online.
One health system details out how it reduced adverse events by 75%.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) wants to require hospitals to improve price transparency by posting "consumer-friendly" cost information online.
One health system details out how it reduced adverse events by 75%.
 

CDC: Too Little Naloxone Being Dispensed
One drug dispensed for every 69 high-dose opioid prescriptions

Even though prescriptions of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone soared 106% in one year, the drug still isn't being dispensed often enough, a CDC analysis concluded.
Only one naloxone prescription was dispensed for every 69 high-dose opioid prescriptions in 2018, reported Gery Guy, Jr., PhD, of the agency's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, and co-authors in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Naloxone prescriptions doubled from 2017 to 2018, from 270,710 to 556,847, said CDC Principal Deputy Director Anne Schuchat, MD, in a press briefing. And the number of high-dose opioid prescriptions -- defined as 50 or more morphine milligram equivalents per day -- fell 21% in that period, from 48.6 million to 38.4 million.
But that still fell short, Schuchat said: "If each person with a high-dose opioid prescription were offered naloxone, nearly 9 million prescriptions for naloxone could have been dispensed in 2018."
 

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. 

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:  
  • Your article will have the potential to obtain more citations.
  • Your article will be peer-reviewed and published faster than other journals.
  • Your article can be read by a potentially much larger audience compared with traditional subscription-only journals.  
  • Open Access journals are FREE to view, download and to print.

So submit today your:
  • Case Reports
  • Technical Reports
  • Editorials
  • Short Perspectives

State Medicaid Programs to Report on Prescription Opioid Use

State Medicaid programs are set to conduct new screenings on opioid prescriptions beginning in October.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid released  guidance  on Aug. 5 to implement state-level audits as part of the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, a 2018 law to reduce opioid fraud and abuse. CMS’ audits include increased monitoring on prescription opioid claims and reviews for antipsychotic medication for children.
States will be required to implement electronic audits known as safety edits—which track a patient’s opioid use—empowering prescribers and pharmacists to review if that level of use is appropriate.

2019 MIPS Reporting? Start Now.
MIPS-eligible clinicians must report a full year of data. Don’t fall behind – keep up with NIPM-QCDR.
 
MIPS 2019 has brought larger payment adjustments and greater reporting requirements, including a 365-day performance period for the Quality and Cost categories. The sooner you start your MIPS reporting for 2019, the better.
Sign up today to use ASIPP’s NIPM-QCDR for MIPS.
This powerful tool makes MIPS reporting easy through the use of our new patient-reported outcomes measures for 2019, which ease the burden on providers and reduces costly EMR integration.

Get started today at ASIPP.ArborMetrix.net

Why Doctors Should Organize
Meeting the challenges of modern medicine will require more than seeing patients.

In the fall of 2018, the American College of Physicians published a position paper on gun violence. “Firearm violence continues to be a public health crisis in the United States,” its authors wrote, in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. The report argued that assault weapons should be banned and that “physicians should counsel patients on the risk of having firearms in the home.” When it was published, the National Rifle Association responded with a tweet : “Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane.”
The N.R.A.’s tweet provoked an unprecedented response from the medical profession. Using the hashtag #ThisIsMyLane, emergency-room physicians, trauma surgeons, pediatricians, and pathologists, all of whom are involved in the care of patients with gunshot wounds, posted images of shooting victims and bloodstained hospital floors. Some shared selfies in which they were splattered with blood.
 

Can CBD make you fail a drug test?

Drug tests don’t screen for CBD, but that doesn’t mean you’re in the clear.
You nailed your cover letter and rocked the interview. All that's standing between you and an awesome new job is a mandatory drug screening. Will that CBD oil you've been taking for pain relief cause you to fail the test?
This story discusses substances that are legal in some places but not in others and is for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing legal advice. You shouldn't do things that are illegal -- this story does not endorse or encourage illegal drug use. 
 
State Society News 

August 9-10, 2019
Ohio and Kentucky Annual Meeting
Westin Cincinnati
Cincinnati, OH

Send in your state society meeting news to Holly Long, [email protected]
ASIPP | Pain Physician Journal | Phone | Fax | Email