Online registration is now open for the 2007 Competency Review Courses and Examinations in Coding, Compliance, and Practice Management & Controlled Substance Management.

The course will be held at the Carib e Royale Resort in beautiful Orlando, FL. The five-day intensive review course (April 12-16) is planned as a CME activity to prepare physicians seeking competency certification and to provide Interventional Pain Management Specialists and other healthcare providers an in-depth review of multiple areas of interventional pain management.

The Competency Certification Exams will be held on April 17. Register today for the review courses and exams!

Applications are now being accepted for the FIPP (ABIPP Part II) examination to be held on March 11, 2007 in Memphis, TN. Successful completion of FIPP is a required component for the American Board of Interventional Pain Physicians (ABIPP) certification.

Exam space is limited and only a few spots remain. To assure your place in the exam, immediate registration is encouraged. Upon the approval of your application, review material will be sent for examination preparation. For a copy of the Examination application, click here. For more details on the FIPP exam or to access click on the following link FIPP or contact Paula Brashear at (806) 743-3112 or paula.brashear@ttuhsc.edu

Along with the FIPP examination, ASIPP is offering the Interventional Techniques Review Course (March 9) and a Comprehensive Cadaver Workshop (March 10). Spaces are filling up fast so early registration is highly suggested. ASIPP has secured a group rate of $154 per night with host hotel Doubletree Downtown if booked by Feb 20th, 2007. Inform the agent you are booking for ASIPP. Online registration is now available. For information on the review course, cadaver workshop and exam, visit our Web site. Register Online today!

David Niv, MD, ASIPP member and well-known Israeli physician and professor was found shot and killed Tuesday morning in his car in Ramat Gan.

Niv, 57, was head of the pain clinic at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. New reports say at 1:30 Tuesday morning, police received a report of a car that had collided with a tree and come to a rest on a traffic island on Aluf Sadeh boulevard in Ramat Gan.

Upon arrival on the scene police and paramedics on the scene found Niv dead in the driver's seat with bullet wounds in his upper body and bullet holes across the side panel of the car. Police have opened an investigation into the murder, but have no leads on the background or motives for the crime

Professor Niv was considered one of the leading experts in Israel in the field of pain therapy, and was a leading figure in world organizations dealing with the medication and treatment of pain. Niv was immediate past president of the World Institute of Pain. He also served on the Pain Physician journal editorial board.

Professor Niv was also a leading researcher in his field and published over 120 articles on pain treatment and therapy. His work and research, focused on patients suffering from chronic pain, and adopted the approach that pain is not only a symptom of illness, but is itself a disease. Colleagues say Niv's philosophy was there is "no reason to suffer pain in silence.

ASIPP extends our deepest condolences to Dr. Niv's family, friends and colleagues. His work and dedication to the field of interventional pain management will be greatly missed. ASIPP CEO Laxmaiah Manchikanti will personally miss Niv's friendship.

The 2007 Guidelines have recently been accepted for inclusion in the National Guideline Clearinghouse. The guidelines are expected to be posted to the NGC site within a few weeks. In the meantime, you can access the 2007 Guidelines on the Pain Physician 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

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The Health Insurance Portability and Accountablitly Ace (HIPAA) has mandated that all carriers begin using unique National Provider Identifier (NPI) numbers by May 23, 2007, now less than four months away.

In order to comply with this new regulation, practitioners must apply for NPI numbers. The process is not complicated and can be completed online through the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES).

Before filing your application online, you should have all of the information for your provider ready as you can not save your work and complete the form at a later date. Have the followin information ready:

• Social Security Number or IRS tax identification number
• Date of birth
• Country of birth
• State of birth
• Mailing address
• Practice location address and telephone number
• Provider specialty
• State license information

Read the NPI Final Rule

Deaths in Washington linked to prescription drugs such as hydrocodone and methadone increased by more than 800 percent in 10 years, according to new research. (AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Feb. 5, 2007 )

Painkillers resulted in 411 deaths in Washington in 2004, an 813 percent increase over the 45 deaths reported in 1995, state health researchers found. Spokane, with 48 deaths in 2004, had the highest death rate per population of any county in the state.

Health officials say the numbers speak to a nationwide problem. A national study drafted last year for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed an increase of more than 91 percent in narcotic painkiller poisonings listed on death certificates between 1999 and 2002

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There appears to be a growing trend in allied health professions seeking scope-of-practice expansion to go through their own regulatory boards instead of state legislatures.

National groups such as the American Optometric Association and state groups such as the Texas Podiatric Medical Association among many other groups report their boards are amending regulations within their authority, according to an American Medical News report. Other state's seeing the push to expand scope of practice are:

• Texas Medical Association is in a legal battle with the state's chiropractor and podiatrists. Both boards have made regulatory changes the TMA considers scope expansions.
• New York, nurse anesthetists have asked regulators to create a category of nurse anesthetists that would practice without doctor supervision.
• The Idaho medical Association and the Idaho Society of Ophthalmology, along with the medical board, approached the Idaho State Board of Optometry with its decision to include certain eyelid procedures within optometrists' scope
• The Massachusetts, state podiatric board, through a regulatory hearing, defined the scope of podiatry to include the ankle and amputation.
• In Louisiana there has been an ongoing battle with the scope of practice of CRNAs. The Louisiana State Board of Nursing originally authorized the practice of practice of chronic interventional pain management techniques. Its was later ruled by the State of Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal that the LSBN lacked authority to authorize this authority.

For a decade, experts in medicine and technology have been saying that patient/doctor e- mailing was an obvious trend just waiting to explode. But studies show a very slow adoption of the practice: Just 8% of adults said they had received e- mail from their doctors in an online survey in 2005 by Harris Interactive for The Wall Street Journal Online. (USA Today, Feb. 7, 2007- Painter)

Although 25% of doctors said they communicated online with patients in a survey last year by Manhattan Research, other studies suggest a smaller number do so regularly.

Medicine "has been astonishingly behind the rest of the world," says Debra Roter, a researcher who studies doctor/patient communication at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.