·  Discounted Room Rate Ends July 24 for ASIPP Comprehensive Board Review Course

·  Democrats from the House Energy and Commerce Committee emerged from a meeting Tuesday with President Barack Obama saying no decisions had been made on new ways to cut the price tag of health-care legislation.

·  Register Today for the Comprehensive Review Course: Discounted Room Rate Ends July 24

·  Budget Blow for Health Plan

·  Challenge to Health Bill: Selling Reform

·  AMA Ranks Payers' Claims Processes, Which are Often a 'Murky Mess'

·  New Online Doctor Rating Site Treads Carefully

·  Patient Portion of Fees Often a Mystery

·  The Truth About Bottled Water

·  FDA Approves Vaccine for 2009-2010 Seasonal Influenza

·  GSIPP 5th Annual Summer Meeting

·  Physicians Wanted

Discounted Room Rate Ends July 24 for ASIPP Comprehensive Board Review Course

The 2009 ASIPP Board Review Course will be held on August 11 -15 in New Orleans. The ABIPP Part I Examination will take place on August 16 following the review course. Online registration for the review course is now available. You must submit an application to sit for the ABIPP Part I Exam.

This intensive review course is designed to present interventional pain physicians with an in-depth review of multiple areas of interventional pain management. The course will feature many nationally known experts in IPM, controlled substance, billing and coding, healthcare law, and other areas.

The course will be held at the Astor Crowne Royal. A discounted room rate of $109 is available until July 24- book early! Call 504-962-0500 and tell them you are booking under the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians.

Brochure

Register Online Today!

Democrats from the House Energy and Commerce Committee emerged from a meeting Tuesday with President Barack Obama saying no decisions had been made on new ways to cut the price tag of health-care legislation.

Democrats from the House Energy and Commerce Committee emerged from a meeting Tuesday with President Barack Obama saying no decisions had been made on new ways to cut the price tag of health-care legislation (Pulizzi and Yoest, The Wall Street Journal, July 21, 2009).

"No final decisions are yet made on cost-containment measures because quite frankly we've got to wait for the [Congressional Budget Office] to score the bill as well as these potential cost-cutting measures," said Rep. Mike Ross (D., Ark.).

The Wall Street Journal

Register Today for the Comprehensive Review Course: Discounted Room Rate Ends July 24

Online registration is now open for the 2009 Comprehensive Review Course and Examinations in Coding, Compliance, and Practice Management & Controlled Substance Management.

The course will be held at the Astor Crowne Plaza in New Orleans on Aug. 11 - 16. This intensive review course is 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 Controlled Substance Management course will be held on Aug. 11-12 with an optional exam on Aug. 13. The Coding, Compliance, and Practice Management section will begin on Aug. 14-15. The examination for this section will be held on Aug. 16.

For brochure, registration and hotel information go to ASIPP Meetings.

Register Online

Budget Blow for Health Plan

Congress's chief budget scorekeeper cast a new cloud over Democratic efforts to overhaul the nation's health-care system, telling lawmakers Thursday that the main proposals being considered would fail to contain costs -- one of the primary goals -- and could actually worsen the problem of rapidly escalating medical spending (Hitt, The Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2009).

The Wall Street Journal

Challenge to Health Bill: Selling Reform

What's in it for me? On the subject of health care reform, most Americans probably don't have a good answer to the question. And that, obviously, is a problem for the White House and for Democratic leaders in Congress (Lionhardt, The New York Times, July 21, 2009).

Current bills would expand the number of insured - but 90 percent of voters already have insurance. Congressional leaders say the bills would cut costs. But experts are dubious. Instead, they point out that covering the uninsured would cost billions.

The New York Times

AMA Ranks Payers' Claims Processes, Which are Often a 'Murky Mess'

In hopes that it may lead to reduced payment hassles and could save doctors time and money, the American Medical Association yesterday scored seven large health plans plus Medicare in their promptness and accuracy for paying claims (Clark, HealthLeaders Media, July 22, 2009).

The survey found a wide variation in practices among the payers, with each using a different set of rules, different timelines, and confusing and inconsistent processes.

HealthLeaders Media

New Online Doctor Rating Site Treads Carefully

A nonprofit called Consumers' Checkbook is launching the latest effort to let patients rate their doctors. It's hardly the first entrant in the space. Among others, WellPoint is working with the restaurant-raters Zagat. And various efforts by health plans to rate doctors have run into a lot of static, resulting last year in an agreement on a framework for such quality rankings (Matthews, The Wall Street Journal Health Blog, July 22, 2009).

The Wall Street Journal

Patient Portion of Fees Often a Mystery

When Ellen Brull, MD, a family physician in a three-doctor practice in Niles, Ill., changed medical billers, the previous one handed over $35,000 worth of old, unpaid bills that she hadn't known existed. So, she sent those patients new invoices. A few patients called to say they were billed in error. Most ignored them. Only about $1,000 came in (Elliott, American Medical News, July 27, 2009 Issue).

amednews.com

The Truth About Bottled Water

Imagine you've just been given a choice: You have to drink from one of two containers. One container is a cup from your own kitchen, and it contains a product that has passed strict state, federal and local guidelines for cleanliness and quality. Oh, and it's free. The second container comes from a manufacturing plant somewhere, and its contents-while seemingly identical to your first choice-have not been subjected to the same strict national and local standards. It costs approximately four times more than gasoline. These products both look and taste nearly identical (Yahoo Health, July 21, 2009).

Yahoo Health

FDA Approves Vaccine for 2009-2010 Seasonal Influenza

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced that it has approved a vaccine for 2009- 2010 seasonal influenza in the United States.

The seasonal influenza vaccine will not protect against the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus that resulted in the declaration of a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on June 11, 2009. The FDA continues to work with manufacturers, international partners and other government agencies to facilitate the availability of a safe and effective vaccine against the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus.

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FDA