ASIPP is offering a new feature for those who advertise on our Postions Wanted section of the ASIPP Website. As a service to our advertisers and our members, we will list the link to each current job posting.

Interventional Pain Specialist -- Paducah, KY and Marion, IL

Interventional Pain Medicine Physician – St. Cloud, Minnesota

Entrepreneurial Opportunity -- BE/BC Fellowship Trained Pain Physician(s)

Musculoskeletal Interventionalist -- Dallas, Texas

100% Pain Practice For an Anesthesiologist or Physiatrist -- Wisconsin

Pain Management Openings Fellowship Opportunities -- Florida

Interventional Physiatrist -- Wilmington, North Carolina

Pain Specialist -- Wisconsin

PainCare Holding, Inc.

The Comprehensive Interventional Cadaver Workshop and Review Course, Oct 5-7, 2007 will feature instructon for all levels of expertise; basic, intermediate and a special advanced session on discography techniques for the advanced section. This section will include minimally invasive disc surgery and LASE. The course will provide informative lectures preceding the hands-on instruction.

The course is a CME activity which is ideal for physicians who are seeking board certifiication or for those who are looking for an in-depth review of interventional techniques. Don't miss this excellent opportunity for professional enhancement.

Online Brochure

As we near the end of the year the pending cuts are now just around the corner. With just a few months left, we must once again contact our elected officials. It is crucial we continue to make them aware of our legislative issues.

• Physician Payment Reform
• ASC Reimbursement Cuts
• NASPER Funding

ASIPP has created a new Capwiz letter campaign to assist you contacting Congress. We have created a link for physicians as well as a link for staff, family, friends and patients.

Please take the time to not only send a letter today. Additionally, we urge you to have your patients sign the letter and support this effort as well.

1. Customize and print off copies of the sample
2. Identify patients' state
3. As your patients sign out, ask them to fill out and
4. Using the patient Capwiz link assign a staff
5. Also you can print off the ASIPP Advocacy page and post

Physicians Letter
Patient Letter

State officials are setting up a database to keep better track of prescription drugs. A $372,000 federal grant puts the state Pharmacy Board in charge of the database to monitor prescription records for narcotics. "It does mean there will be a better way to make sure somebody isn't using a forged prescription to buy drugs and then sell them," said state Sen. Judy Lee, R-Grand Forks. It also will allow for better management of prescriptions, so doctors and pharmacists can make sure they are up to date about patients' medications, she said. The plan was drafted carefully to make sure patients' privacy is protected, she said.

CMS recently issued update information on the technical changes to sections 6041 and 6042 the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) of 2005, Public Law No. 109-171. The notice also provides guidance on changes enacted by the Tax Relief and Health Care Act (TRHC) of 2006, Public Law No. 109-432 and Section 6043 of the DRA, "Emergency Room Co- payments for Non-Emergency Care."

Read the Informational Notice

CMS Informational Notice

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Retail sales of five leading painkillers nearly doubled from 1997 to 2005, reflecting a surge in use by patients nationwide who are living in a world of pain, according to a new Associated Press analysis of federal drug prescription data. (nytimes.com - Aug. 20, 2007)

The New York Times

Some prominent Arkansas pain doctors are asserting that the practice of responsible pain management in the state has a bad case of shingles - as in too many unqualified doctors hanging theirs out as pain specialists in the hopes of making easy money. Another reform advocate calls that a bunch of hooey but says the bigger problem is that too few physicians are willing to give patients the time-intensive, low-reimbursing continual care they need for chronic pain, opting instead for expensive procedures that may actually cause harm. Either way, both sides seem to agree that unless changes are made, the under- or mistreatment of pain will continue to be a chronic problem for too many Arkansans. (J. Boulden, August 22, 2007 - Medical News of Arkansas).

Medical News of Arkansas

When his craving for painkillers got to be too much, Steve Dotson lay down and let his wife drive a car over his leg. It hurt, but he could dismiss the pain with thoughts of the medicated bliss that would follow. Soon, he lost his house, the state took his children away and he was spending nights under a bridge, where he hoped to die. (T. Breen, August 21, 2007 - Associated Press)

Dotson is one of millions of Americans who have experienced the harm that can come from addiction to the prescription narcotic hydrocodone. Less regulated than similar prescription painkillers, drugs containing hydrocodone have quietly become the most widely prescribed - and, perhaps, widely abused - opiate painkillers on the market.

Yahoo News

State leaders voted recently to press the federal government for a single healthcare IT certification body ( Manos, August 16, 2007 - Healthcare IT News).

The group, at a meeting of the State Alliance for e- Health, also gave a nod to the already established Certification Commission for Health Information Technology, and agreed states should be more involved in developing the certification process.

Healthcare IT News

After 26 years of a successful medical practice, Alan Berkenwald took for granted that he had a good reputation. But last month he was told he didn't measure up -- by a new computerized rating system. (E. Nakashima, July 25, 2007- Washington Post)

A patient said an insurance company had added $10 to the cost of seeing Berkenwald instead of other physicians in his western Massachusetts town because the system had demoted him to its Tier 2 for quality.

In the quest to control spiraling costs, insurance companies and employers are looking more closely than ever at how physicians perform, using computers, mountains of health claims and billing data and sophisticated software. Such data-driven surveillance offers the prospect of using incentives to steer patients to care that is both effective and sensibly priced.

Washington Post

The Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers' Compensation (DWS), will hold a stakeholder meeting at 9 a.m. on August 27, 2007. The purpose of the meeting is to provide workers' compensation system participants an opportunity to comment on the implementaion of workers' compensation legislation passed by the 80th Texas Legislature.

Please click on the following link for addtional information and the meeting agenda: http://tdi.state.tx.us/news/2007/news2007111.html

Texas Department of Insurance

The Kentucky Society of Interventional Pain Physicians (KSIPP) will hold its Annual Meeting in Lexington, KY on September 15 and 16 at the Hyatt Regency in beautiful downtown Lexington.

The meeting will begin at noon on Sat., Sept. 15 and end mid-day on Sun., Sept. 16. Lecture topics will include: Development of a DVD for Anatomical Sciences; SCS Controversies; Intrathecal Low Dose Opioids for Chronic Pain; Discography for IPM; Medicaid Forum for Drug Diversion; Legislative Challenges Facing IPM, and many other interesting and informative topics.

In addition to many informative lectures, we will also hold a fundraiser for Kentucky Congressman Ben Chandler who is a friend of ASIPP and serves on the Appropriations Committee. I hope all of you will attend. Mark you calendar, bring your staff and family and enjoy a wonderful weekend in Lexington, Kentucky.

Make your hotel reservations by contacting: Hyatt Regency Lexington 401 West High Street, Lexington, Kentucky, 40507 859-253-1234 http://lexington.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp Tell the booking agent you are reserving under ASIPP to receive the discount rate of $129 - Reserve early as all unbooked rooms will be released on August 21.

Register Online