Registration Still Open for Comprehensive Review Course

Registrations are still being accepted for the Comprehensive Review Course in Controlled Substance Management and Coding, Compliance and Practice Management. The five-day intensive review course (April 12- 16) is planned as a CME activity to prepare physicians seeking competency certification and to provide interventional pain management  specialists and other healthcare providers an in-depth review of multiple areas of interventional pain management. Optional examinations will follow on April 17 - registration remains open for the exam as well.

Our host hotel, Caribe Royale Orlando, continues to honor the ASIPP discount group rate but rooms are limited. If you have not already booked your room, please do so immediately to take advantage of this special discount rate.

Discounts Offered

In response to your requests, ASIPP is offering a discounted fee for the review course for non-physicians.Registration for non-physicians has been reduced by $200 when applying for both courses. The registration fee for both courses is now $1,000. Individual courses have also been reduced, and are now $700.

Exam Registration for Physicians has also been reduced. Now you may register for both exams for $1,000 - single exams are now $500. Refunds will be issued to those who have already registered where applicable.

The course will be held at the Caribe Royale Resort in beautiful Orlando, FL. The five-day intensive review course (April 12- 16) is planned as a CME activity to prepare physicians seeking competency certification and to provide interventional pain management Specialists and other healthcare providers an in-depth review of multiple areas of interventional pain management. The exam will follow on April 17.

Discounted Registration Form

ASIPP is pleased to inform you that on Friday, March 30, after much hard work on the part of our members, we gained over 60 representatives’ signatures on the Congressional letter to CMS. Now that we have the House support, we must move on to get the support of the Senate.

Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and David Vitter (R- LA) have taken the lead on this initiative to convince CMS to re-evaluate the proposed rule's payment formula by co-signing their own letter to CMS. Our goal is to convince the senators from each state to also send a letter.

As you know from previous correspondences, if Congress does not act, these proposed major changes to the Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) payment system, currently under review by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), will have devastating effects on interventional pain management and ultimately hurt patient access.

As in the House campaign, we have made this simple for you. The following link will take you to the Capwiz site where you can effortlessly e-mail your senators with this important message. http://www.asipp.org/cms-asc/

If you prefer, you can send the letter on your personal or business letterhead. I urge you to do this as soon as possible and to encourage your colleagues to join in the effort. Additionally, we urge you to have your patients sign the letter and support this effort as well.

• Identify patients’ state and Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
• Customize and print off copies of the sample letter. http://www.asipp.org/documents/Example-Patients-Senate-Letter-To-Sign.doc (one for both Senators)
• As your patients sign out, ask them to fill out and sign the bottom of the form.
• Using the patient Capwiz link http://www.asipp.org/cms-asc/ assign a staff member to submit the patients' letters.
• Also you can print off the ASC Alert page http://www.asipp.org/cms-asc/ and post it in your office to provide Web site information

CMS released the 2nd quarter National Correct Coding Inititive (NCCI) updats this week with no major changes, However, changes to be aware of are: codes 95865 adn 95866 were added into codes 64613, 64614 and 64640.

CCI Updates

If the air date does not change, CBS Evening News with Katie Couric is scheduled to air a story about ‘Pill Mills’ tonight at 5:30 p.m. CDT. The segment features a Houston clinic and an interview with Andrea Trescot, MD, ASIPP President-Elect. After being approached by CBS for expert knowledge in the area of prescription abuse, Trescot provided an interview on the subject.

CBS

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy on Monday said 4 percent of New Jerseyans have abused prescription drugs in the past year, with 11 percent of young adults aged 18 to 25 reporting misuse of a prescription drug.

National drug use surveys indicate about 3 percent of residents have abused prescription drugs in the past year, with about 6 percent of those aged 18 to 25 reporting they have misused a prescription drug. The White House drug office also noted treatment admissions in New Jersey for pain killers have increased 217 percent from 1999 through 2005. "Prescription drug abuse is a serious problem in New Jersey," said Deputy U.S. Drug Czar Scott Burns.

Newsday.com

According to MedWatch, FDA notified healthcare professionals of a nationwide Class I recall of Radio Frequency (RF) Denervation probes used with the Smith & Nephew Electrothermal 20S Spine System in RF heat lesion procedures for the relief of pain. The product was mislabeled. The device is a non-sterile (not germ free) device but it was labeled incorrectly as sterile (germ-free). It is a reusable item that is intended to be sterilized (made germ-free) by the medical facility prior to each use, including initial use. This error may result in infections with associated risks including, organ failure and/or death.

A complete MedWatch 2007 Safety summary, including a link to the FDA recall notice and Smith and Nephew press release is available.

NASS

Salt Lake Tribune -- Jennifer Bennett Goodall - who fought a drug addiction and became an anti-narcotics spokeswoman - died on her wedding night from a drug designed to keep her sober, police said Tuesday. Goodall died Dec. 24 from "acute methadone toxicity," said Salt Lake City police spokesman Jeff Bedard. That finding was made by a medical examiner who also labeled her death a case of prescription abuse, Bedard said. Detectives are not saying how Goodall obtained the methadone, Bedard said, but her death was labeled as "prescription abuse." Methadone-related deaths, like other types of prescription drug deaths, have increased dramatically in recent years, according to state Medical Examiner's Office statistics.Goodall had suffered from a drug habit then tried sobriety and became a speaker in an anti-drug campaign led by Utah's first lady, Mary Kay Hunstman. (Carlisle - April 4, 2007)

Salt Lake Tribune

The online brochure for the May Interventional Techniques Review Course and Comprehensive Interventional Cadaver Workshop is now available.

This course is planned as a CME activity which will provide an in-depth review of interventional techniques and/or prepare physicians seeking board certification.

Online registration is now open.

Meetings

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that it is implementing a contingency plan for covered entities (other than small health plans) who will not meet the May 23, 2007, deadline for compliance with the National Provider Identifier (NPI) regulations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996.

The final rule establishing the NPI as the standard unique health provider identifier for health care providers was published in 2004 and requires all covered entities to be in compliance with its provisions by May 23, 2007, except for small health plans, which must be in compliance by May 23, 2008.

CMS encourages health plans to assess the readiness of their provider communities to determine the need to implement contingency plans to maintain the flow of payments while continuing to work toward compliance. Likewise, they encourage health care providers that have not yet obtained NPIs to do so immediately, and to use their NPIs in HIPAA transactions as soon as possible. To apply for an NPI visit the National Plan/Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) website. A critical aspect of implementing the NPI is the ability for covered entities to match a provider’s NPI with the many legacy provider identifiers that have been used to process administrative transactions. CMS plans to make data available from the NPPES system that will assist covered entities in developing these "crosswalks."

The New York State Chapter of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians will hold its annual meeting on May 11th 2007. The event will take place at the Turning Stone Resort in Verona, NY. Please RSVP by April 27th to John Taylor (315)-727- 0243.

The meeting will begin with a 6 PM reception, followed by the dinner meeting at 7 PM The Turning Stone Resort 218 Patrick Road Verona, NY 13478 1-800-771-7711 www.turningstone.com The resort is offering a limited number of rooms at a reduced conference rate of $225. Room Reservations may be made at 1-800-771-7711. When booking, please refer to this meeting.