Interventional Techniques in Chronic Spinal Pain is the premier manual for interventional pain management physicians. This must have text book has an expected publication date of Summer 2007. All proceeds go to the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians.

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Attend ASIPP legislative session to help prevent 10% cuts for 2008 and 40% cuts for next 8 years for physician payments and 12% and 28% cuts for ASCs.

The legislative session will take place on June 25-27. It is imperative that each state is represented. To date there are 18 states without any representation: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, and West Virginia.

We are very close to preventing the cuts and maybe even a long-term agreement on physician payments. We are also close to end negotiations with CMS with regards to ASC surgery center payments. It is also crucial to get funding for NASPER.

While we are working vigorously to achieve these goals, a final push is essential for us to prevent these drastic cuts which may even lead to extinction of interventional pain management.

If you reside in one of the non-represented states, lease consider attending the legislative session. If your state is represented, we would ask you to come and support those who have already committed. Many states only have one or two representatives--remember there is strength in numbers!

Make that call today, attend the meeting, prevent future cuts in physician payments and save our specialty.

See an illustrative graph comparing the increase in practice costs and proposed Medicare cuts.

Register Online Today!

The May/June issue of Pain Medicine News (Volume 5/Number 3) featured the 2007 Guidelines for Interventional Techniques. The Guidelines were released in Jan. 2007 in ASIPP's journal, Pain Physician.

See the Pain Physician.

painmedicinenews.com

For the first time in nearly a decade, ASIPP, AAPM, ISIS, the American Medical Association (AMA), and more than 70 other medical specialty societies, have worked together to coordinate a comprehensive multi- specialty survey of America's physician practices during 2007. The purpose of the survey is to collect up-to-date information on physician practice characteristics in order to positively influence national decision makers while further developing and refining AMA and ASIPP policy. Thousands of practices will be surveyed from virtually all physician specialties to ensure accurate and fair representation for all physicians and their patients.

Press Release

The ASIPP Comprehensive Imaging Review in Interventional Pain Management will be held on July 13-15, 2007 in Las Vegas, with a competency certification in Fluoroscopic Interpretation and Radiation Safety for Physicians only to follow on July 16. Online brochure and registration are now available.

The comprehensive seminar is designed to provide interventional pain physicians with the ability to understand radiological evaluations and fluoroscopic interpretation. This course is an essential component for interventional pain physicians and will provide educational opportunities to assist you in providing high quality, competent, safe, and cost-efficient services to your patients.

Register

If the nearly 10% cut to Medicare physician pay goes through as planned in January 2008, the physicians who start tapering off or ending their acceptance of new beneficiaries are expected to outnumber the doctors who don't. That is one of the central conclusions of an American Medical Association Member Connect survey released earlier this month. When nearly 9,000 member and nonmember physicians were asked in May how they would react to the expected reduction, 60% said they would either decrease the number of Medicare patients they would accept into their practices for the first time or stop seeing new Medicare patients altogether. Forty percent of the respondents said they would take one of these steps with beneficiaries who are established patients.

American Medical News

Spending on Medicare outpatient services will grow at an alarming rate in the coming years -- a financial picture that would worsen if Congress acts to prevent several years of predicted physician reimbursement reductions, according to a new report from Medicare trustees.

amednews.com

The 2007 Guidelines have recently been accepted for inclusion in the National Guideline Clearinghouse and are now available on the to be NGC Web site.

If you are interested in working on future articles or systematic reviews for the Pain Physician Journal, please contact Holly Long at hlong@asipp.org

See 2007 Guidelines

National Guideline Clearing House

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 I To Be Administered in August

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

More than 15,800 people have accessed the article "A randomized, controlled trial of spinal endoscopic adhesiolysis in chronic refractory low back and lower extremity pain," earning it a "highly accessed" flag on BioMed Central's online journal, Anesthesiology. The article, authored by Laxmaiah Manchikanti, Mark V. Boswell, Jose J. Rivera, Vidyasagar Pampati, Kim S. Damron, Carla D. McManus, Doris E. Brandon and Sue R. Wilson, has been on the web site since Aug. 1, 2006. The "highly accessed" graphic appears on the journal's table of contents and search results to identify those articles that have been especially highly accessed, relative to their age, and the journal in which they were published.

"Prevalence of facet joint pain in chronic spinal pain of cervical, thoracic and lumbar regions," a May 2004 article by Laxmaiah Manchikanti, Mark V. Boswell, Vijay Singh, Vidyasagar Pampati, Kim S. Damron and Carla D. Beyer. This article has been accessed by more than 33,800 people since it first appeared on BioMed Central.

"Risk of whole body radiation exposure and protective measures in fluoroscopically guided interventional techniques: a prospective evaluation." The article, written by Laxmaiah Manchikanti, Kim A. Cash, Tammy L. Moss, Jose Rivera, and Vidyasagar Pampati, was published in 2003, has been viewed over 13,200 times, and as the articles mentioned above, is available to open access on the BioMed Central Web site.

Access these articles on BioMed Central

BioMed Central