Please join us for the ASIPP 10th Annual Meeting on June 21-25, 2008. This year marks an important milestone; ten years as "The Voice of Interventional Pain Management."

This year's highligts are:

• ASIPP 10th Annual Meeting Celebration
• Featuring Practice Management for Interventional Pain Physicians and Professionals
• Legislative Session and Capitol Hill Visits
• Abstract Presentations

Brochure

Meetings

Congress is currently discussing a Medicare Package fix which means they need to hear form their constituents immediately. We can not afford to put this off until a later date.

We have created a new Capwiz letter in an effort to gain renewed attention from our legislators to this dire situation. We are facing devastating physician reimbursement cuts and even greater cuts to ASC and office-based procedures. It will take a concerted effort on the part of the entire ASIPP membership if we are to get the ears and eyes of Congress and convince them to act.

Send a letter addressing all three issues through Capwiz: http://capwiz.com/asipp/issues/alert/?alertid=11058511&type=CO

Our government officals need to hear from our patients as well. This is easy to accomplish; print out the patient letter we have provided and ask all your patients to sign it (the last page of the word document for your state, see link in paragraph above). After you obtain these signatures your staff can send them as a Capwiz letter using the following link: http://capwiz.com/asipp/issues/alert/?alertid=11058731&type=CO

If you have any questions, call the ASIPP office for assistance: 270-554-9412.

The push to prevent impending Medicare physician pay cuts is being advanced by a new bill that would block such reductions for 18 months (Trapp, amednews.com, April 7 issue).

The legislation, called the Save Medicare Act of 2008, would continue a 0.5% physician pay update for the last six months of 2008 and would institute a 1.8% update for 2009. Physicians are slated to receive a 10.6% cut starting July 1 and an additional cut of about 5% in 2009.

On May 16 - 18, ASIPP will hold a Review Course in Fluoroscopy & Cadaver Workshop in Spinal and Non-Spinal Interventional Techniques covering basic and intermediate levels. The course will be held at the Memphis Marriott Downtown and the Medical Education Research Center (MERI) in Memphis, TN.

At the completion of the Fluoroscopy course, physicians will also have the opportunity to sit for the ABIPP Competency Certification Examination in Fluoroscopic Interepretation and Radiation Safety.

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 early and save. Registrations received on or before April 25 may take advantage of the early registration discount.

The Memphis Marriott Downtown is our host hotel for this event. Book your room on or before April 23 to recieve the ASIPP discount group rate of $159. Call 1- 888-557-8740.

Meetings

According to a recent e-mail form Vaughn  Associates, LLC, the Recovery Audit Contractors ("RAC's") have now been expanded by CMS to begin audits beyond the initial three test states in which they started to all 50 states.

Read More

Doctors and health insurers called a tentative truce Tuesday in their long-standing dispute over how health plans rank physicians' efforts in taking care of patients (R. Abelson, The New York Times, April 1, 2008).

The parties said on Tuesday that they would develop a national set of standards to measure physician performance.

The New York Times

The March/April issue of Pain Physician journal is now available online. Member will recieve thier personal copies soon.

Pain Physician Journal Seeks Article Submission

Pain Physician journal will feature three special topical issues this year, in addition to the regular bimonthly publications. The American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians' official journal, Pain Physician, will feature these special issues:

Ethics - Topics will cover:

1. General issues in normative and applied medical ethics as relevant to the care of pain;
2. Clinical ethical issues focal to under- and/or over- treatment of pain;
3. Conceptual and practical issues related to informed consent;
4. Conceptual and practical issues related to (institutional) review of (experimental, quasi- experimental and/or clinical) studies of pain assessment, and/or therapeutics;
5. Ethical issues relevant to medico-legal concerns and/or development and articulation of health policy and law.
   

Health Policy and Practice Management

All written materials should follow Pain Physician manuscript for author's instructions. The topical issues will also undergo peer review. For more information contact Holly Long at hlong@asipp.org

For the first time in nearly a decade, the 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. The survey will collect up-to-date characteristics of thousands of physician practices from virtually all specialties, and be used in efforts to positively influence national decision makers to ensure accurate and fair representation for all physicians and patients.

Read more

Survey Information

When a physician assistant missed a diagnosis that led to complications with a sinus infection, two supervising doctors were named in the malpractice suit. Their practice agreement claimed one of the physicians would see every patient treated by the assistant, and their failure to do so played a part in the $3 million verdict. Failure to diagnose accounts for about 40% of all medical malpractice lawsuits, and in this case, the jury found that the PA's failure led to the patient's impairment and the financial burdens of extensive medical and rehabilitation costs.

Read More

FDA and Medtronic notified healthcare professionals of the Class 1 recall of Medtronic Neuromodulation Implantable Infusion Pumps, implantable devices for administering drugs to a specific site in the body to treat pain, spasticity and cancer. The company updated the labeling for the devices to include current patient management and treatment recommendations.

The company received reports of inflammatory mass formations at or near the distal tip of intrathecal catheters which infuse opioids, baclofen, or chemotherapy drugs into patients. On January 16, 2008, Medtronic sent a letter to doctors who implant these devices and/or provide care to patients with the implanted device. The letter described the problem, patient risks, patient management, recommendations and next steps. Medtronic's representatives will complete a reply card to document their communication with each doctor regarding this recall, as well as asking the doctors to sign and return a reply card.

FDA MedWatch

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.

National Pain Institute — Florida

Fellowship Trained Physician — Northwest Indiana

Outpatient Interventional Pain Physician — Atlanta, Georgia

BC/BE Physiatrist — Shrewsbury, New Jersey

100% Pain Practice — Eau Claire, Wisconsin

Partnership Opportunity — Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Interventional Pain Physiatrist Wanted — Nevada

Interventional Pain Specialist — Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Pain Management Opportunity — Pennsylvania

Interventional Pain Specialist — Paducah, KY and Marion, IL

Interventional Pain Medicine Physician — St. Cloud, Minnesota