On Tuesday, June 26, over 120 ASIPP members gathered in the Russell Senate building where they were honored with Congressional speeches form nine senators and representatives. At the conclusion of the Legislative Session, members went on to meet with their elected officials to present our legislative issues.

• Physician Payment Reform
• ASC Reform
• NASPER Funding

Members visited with more than 146 officials on the two days of meetings. We thank and applaud all the members who took time out of their busy schedules to represent interventional pain management and ASIPP on Capitol Hill.

Please mark your calendars today for the 2008 Annual Meeting, Legislative Session and Capitol Hill visits. Plan to celebrate the ASIPP 10th Anniversary Meeting as well as make your voice heard on Capitol Hill on June 21 - 25, 2008.

The Centers for Medicare  Medicaid Services (CMS) projects that it will pay approximately $58.9 billion to 900,000 physicians and other health care professionals in calendar year (CY) 2008, under a proposed rule released today that would revise payment rates and policies under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS). This proposed rule is a further step in Medicare's efforts to ensure that payment policies provide incentives to improve the quality of care.

"This proposed rule builds on the changes the Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services made last year to pay more appropriately for practice expenses and to transform Medicare into an active purchaser of higher quality services, rather than just paying for procedures" said acting CMS Administrator Leslie V. Norwalk, Esq. "It also includes an important new initiative to encourage the use of electronic prescribing to improve the speed and accuracy of care furnished to beneficiaries, as well as proposals for additional quality measures for use in the Physician Voluntary Reporting Initiative in 2008."

The Tax Reform and Health Care Act of 2006 (TRHCA) directed that quality measures in future years be developed through the notice and comment rulemaking process. In this proposed rule, CMS outlines measures from seven categories for inclusion in the 2008 Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI), provided that the measures are either endorsed by the National Quality Forum (NQF) or adopted by the AQA Alliance.

CMS Press Release

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 UnitedStates
  

ABIPP
Review Course Information

• ABIPP Application

• 62310 (Col 2) for 0027T, 62287
• 62318 (Col 2) for 0027T, 22521, 22524, 62287
• 62319 (Col 2) for 22520, 22523
• 64470 (Col 2) for 22521, 22524, 62287
• 64475 (Col 2) for 22520, 22523
  

CCI Updates

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The 24-year-old son of former Vice President Al Gore was arrested for drug possession last Wednesday after he was stopped for speeding.

Al Gore III was pulled over for speeding at which time the deputy smelled marijuana and searched the car, according to the sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino. The search turned up a small amount of marijuana, along with prescription drugs including Valium, Xanax, Vicodin, Adderall and Soma. There were no prescriptions found, he said.

Electronic health records make little difference in the quality of medical care, at least when it comes to walk- in doctor visits, a new study found (Gardner, July 10, 2007 - HealthDay News).

"In clinic visits in which doctors did use and didn't use electronic health records, we didn't find clear evidence that EHR use was associated with better quality," said study lead author Dr. Jeffrey Linder.

A new method of setting limits on what the federal government will reimburse state Medicaid agencies for prescription drug payments - aimed at reigning in inflated drug product payments - was announced today in a final rule put on display at the Federal Register.

"This new payment formula allows Medicaid to pay more appropriately for prescription drugs dispensed to Medicaid beneficiaries," said Leslie V. Norwalk, Esq., acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services (CMS).

CMS Press Release

California has received more than 1,600 complaints from consumers, physicians and hospitals about Blue Cross of California since the state's largest health insurer was acquired by an Indiana firm in 2004, officials said Tuesday (Girion, July 11, 2007 - LA Times).

The state announced plans this week to hold a public hearing in Los Angeles on July 19 on how well Blue Cross has lived up to promises it made nearly three years ago as part of the $21-billion acquisition.

Los Angeles Times

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.

Pre-order your copy today!

The Georgia Society of Interventional Pain Physicians will hold its Annual Summer Meeting on July 20-22, 2007 at Lake Oconee, Greensboro, Georgia.

Registration Form and Information

More than 16,100 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 34,500 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 13,300 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