The ASIPP 8th Annual Meeting and SIPMS 2nd Annual Meeting will be held on June 23-27 in Washington, DC. Along with the Annual Meetings, plan to attend the Legislative Session and take part in the Capitol Hill visits. This year's event promises to informative and also memorable, with the second day of our legislative session taking place on Capitol Hill.

The annual meeting will again this year convene in the Cannon Caucus Room on Capitol Hill where we will be honored with the presence of several congressional speakers. We encourage you to sign up for and participate in the Capitol Hill visits which will take place on June 27- 28. This is your opportunity to make your voice heard! But please register early to assure your visit with your state's representative. We will make every effort to schedule your personal request but to increase the likelihood of your visit; we strongly encourage you to register early.

Interventional pain management is facing many grave issues in the upcoming year so we urge you to take this rare opportunity to express your concerns face-to- face with your elected officials.

Register Today!

In a recent letter to Ark. Sen. Argue , Randi Hutchinson, Esq. of Dickstein Shapiro LLP, provided background information on NASPER. Arkansas state legislature has proposed a Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Legislation (PDMP), Senate bill 20 but has not yet passed this bill into law.

Hutchinson points out that 24 states currently have operational PDMPs in place while another 9 have authorized programs. http://www.natlalliance.org/prescription_drug.asp

Read Hutchinson's informative letter

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 Caribe 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!

Physician Registration
Non-physician Registration

Meetings

On behalf of ASIPP, CEO Laxmaiah Manchikanti recently sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to request modifications to the Jan. 2007 National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI) edits.

Manchikanti's Jan. 18 letter appeals to the NCCI to consider revising several areas in the update.

NCCI responded on Feb. 15 with a letter indicating several of Manchikanti's suggested changes would be included in the NCCI version 13.2 which is scheduled for release on July 1, 2007.

See NCCI letter and modifications

On Feb. 15 The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced Thursday plans for reporting physician performance to Medicare beneficiaries. CMS plans to make the public reports by combining Medicare data with data from private insurers.

The Delmarva Foundation for Medical Care, is working with four regional collaborative to combine Medicare data with data from other insurers to produce information on the performance of healthcare providers for Medicare beneficiaries.

CMS Press Release

On Feb. 5 President Bush sent a $2.8 trillion budget to Congress that held within it $77 billion in funding cuts for Medicare and Medicaid over the next five years, and $280 billion over the next 10.

The budget provides for NO funding to reverse the Medicare physician pay cuts. This proposed budget is not binding on Congress.

Read amednews.com story

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.

Pain Physician