The online registration is still open for the May Interventional Techniques Review Course and Comprehensive Interventional Cadaver Workshop. Although there are a few spots still available, you should register soon to assure your place in the course.

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

Online registration

ASIPP Meetings

The ASIPP 9th Annual Meeting and the SIPMS 2nd Annual Meeting will be held on June 23-27 in Washington, DC. This year we are offering a special Ethics Seminar. CMEs specially gained from ethic training is a requirement of the Board of Medical Licensures, as well as for acquiring hospital privileges.

A second important highlight of the Annual Meeting is our Legislative Session and Capitol Hill visits. We will again this year take our legislative session to Capitol Hill where we will be joined by several members of Congress. These speeches will be informative and very helpful in preparing for our Congressional visits. The meeting this year will convene in the Russell Room on Capitol Hill.

We encourage you to sign up for and participate in the Capitol Hill visits which will take place on June 26- 27. This is your opportunity to make your voice heard!

Please register early to assure your visit with your state's representative. We will make every effort to schedule your personal request but to increase the likelihood of your visit; we strongly encourage you to register early.

If you have never attended the Legislative Session before, we urge you to do so this year. Interventional pain management is facing many grave issues in the upcoming year so please take advantage of this rare opportunity to express your concerns face-to- face with your elected officials. Remember there is great strength in numbers. Join us on Capitol Hill and let's make it the largest ASIPP group ever!

See Brochure

Annual Meeting

Females are bucking the traditional drug abuse trends when it comes to the wrongful use of prescription drugs such as antidepressants and tranquilizers.

Associated Press - Normally, usage rates for illicit drugs such as marijuana and cocaine are much higher for men than women. But, for prescription drugs, the reverse is the case for teenage girls, the White House Office of Drug Control Policy said.

Nearly one in 10 teenage girls reported using a prescription drug to get high at least once in the past year, officials said Monday. For teenage boys, the ratio was close to 1 out of 13.

International Herald Tribune

To date, Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH), David Vitter (R-LA) and Jim Bunning (R-KY) have sent letters to CMS urging them to re- evaluate the pending ASC cuts. But ASIPP members should continue to contact the members of the Senate to support the CMS reevaluation of the pending ASC cuts. As many senators have only received under 10 letters. This is not enough to show them the concern of their constituents.

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/

Also 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
• Customize and print off copies of the sample letter (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 assign a staff member to submit the patients' letters
• Also you can print off the ASC Alert page and post it in your office to provide Web site information

Read Sen. Bunning's Letter

If you feel you are too busy to send letters, please consider that 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.

ASC Alert

The chairman of a powerful House subcommittee said he plans to introduce legislation by July that would cut some Medicare spending to free up money for the program's reimbursements to doctors and benefits for seniors (Wayne, CQ).

Read Article

For a cash payment of $128 million, about 900,000 physicians nationwide have settled their disputes about slow pay or nonpayment of claims with 23 Blue Cross and Blue Shield organizations, the parties announced Friday (Dorschner - Miami Herald, Apil 27, 2007)

Agreeing to end the 4-year-old class-action case based in a Miami federal court, the insurers agreed to implement ''important and valuable business practice changes,'' streamlining claims communications between insurers and doctors.

The settlement covers more than 90 percent of all Blues plans in the country, covering 77 million lives, as well as the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, according to a release by the doctors' lawyers.

Miami Herald

Prescription Drug User Fee Reauthorization Bill could face veto if It contains provisions to allow drug reimportation, according to the Bush Administration The administration on Monday said President Bush would veto a bill (S 1082) to reauthorize the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, which will expire on Sept. 30, in the event that the legislation includes a provision to allow prescription drug reimportation from other nations, CongressDaily reports (Edney, CongressDaily, 5/1).

The legislation, which the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee approved in April, would reauthorize PDUFA through 2012. The bill, sponsored by committee Chair Edward Kennedy (D- Mass.), in large part follows a proposal that FDA submitted to Congress earlier this year under which pharmaceutical companies would pay the agency about $393 million in user fees in fiscal year 2008, compared with $305 million in FY 2007. The legislation increased the amount in the proposal by $50 million. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill, which also includes a number of prescription drug safety provisions, would cost $547 million over five years (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 5/1).

Kaiser Network

ASIPP is offering a Comprehensive Pain Medicine Board Review Course for physicians seeking board certification or re-certification for ABMS Pain Medicine examination or for American Board of Interventional Pain Physicians Part I examination.

The review course will be held on Aug. 5 - 10 in Nashville, TN. This six-day intensive Board Review Course is a CME activity which is geared to prepare physicians for their pain boards but can also serve an in-depth review of the specialty of pain medicine

To register on-line or for more information on the review course or to register, visit our Web site.

Meetings

ABIPP Part 1 exam will be administered in Nashville, TN, on Aug. 11, 2007 and registration is now open. The minimum requirements for eligibility are:

• A Primary ABMS or AOA board certification
• An active license to practice medicine in the United States

ABIPP Application

The Fellow of Interventional Pain Practice Examination (Part II of ABIPP) will be September 29, 2007 in Budapest, Hungary ($2,500). A preparatory course for FIPP examinees only will be held on September 28 ($1,000).

Physicians interested in taking the exam can acquire an examination application form and Information Booklet from
James Heavner, D.V.M., PhD, FIPP, Registrar of the Examination
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
3601 4th Street - MS: 8182 Lubbock, TX 79430 USA
Phone: 806-743-3112, Fax: 806-743-3965
E-mail: paula.brashear@ttuhsc.edu
Paula Brashear, FIPP Secretary
Serdar Erdine, MD, FIPP, of Turkey, Chair of Examination Board

Additionally, the World Institute of Pain World Congress will be held on September 25-28, 2007 in Budapest, Hungary.

World Congress registration and program

ASIPP recently had two "Letters to the Editor" accepted for publication. The Journal Neurology will publish the letter regarding "Assessment Use of Epidural Steroid Injections to Treat Radicular Lumbosacral Pain" submitted by Laxmaiah Manchikanti, MD. Although there is no press date set yet, you can access this letter in the future on the www.neurology.org Web site.

The second letter to the Annals of Internal Medicine (February 6, 2007) is a response to Martell et al 2007; 146:116-27 "Facts and Fallacies of Chronic Back Pain and Opioid Treatment" also submitted by Manchikanti. The letter can be found at www.annals.org

Articles Published

An article authored by ASIPP members has been published in the March/April 2007 issue of Journal of Opioid Management Psychological Factors as Predictors of Opioid Abuse and Illicit Drug Use in Chronic Pain Patients was co-authored by Laxmaiah Manchikanti, MD, James Giordano, PhD, Mark V. Boswell, MD PhD, Bert Fellows, MA, Rajeev Manchukonda, BDS, Vidyasagar Pampati, MS. The abstract can be found on www.opioidmanagement.com. (Full Text)

The article Prevalence of Facet Joint Pain in Chronic Low Back Pain in Postsurgical Patients by Controlled Comparative Local Anesthetic Blocks by Laxmaiah Manchikanti, Rajeev Manchukonda, Vidyasagar Pampati, Kim S. Damron, Carla D. McManus, was published in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. To view the Abstract go to elsevierhealth.com. (Full Text)

If you have publications you would like to share with members send them to mmartin@asipp.org

Washington -- The federal government has given the health care industry up to a year-long reprieve in adopting a new standard identification system for use on electronic claims. But that doesn't necessarily let doctors off the hook when it comes to obtaining and using the new ID numbers. (amednews.com - April 23/30)

Under a mandate from Congress, the Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services established May 23 as the deadline for physicians and other medical professionals to apply for and start using a unique National Provider Identifier on all electronic claims. The 10-digit NPI, designed to replace all other identifiers, is required for anyone who files claims electronically with Medicare or any other payer. This applies even if the physician uses an outside firm that files electronically on his or her behalf.

CMS

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