Send New Letters to Congress. As you know from your recent letter from ASIPP CEO, Laxmaiah Manchikanti, MD, and previous alerts from us, we are facing an extremely critical time in healthcare today. There is little time to act on the proposed global cut to Medicare reimbursements. Truly our only hope to prevent these devastating cuts, is to continue sending letters to Congress asking them to:

We have two main goals in front of us now; (1) a temporary fix of the SGR and (2) a permanent fix to prevent CMS from using their current antiquated and flawed methodology. The numbers don’t lie, if no intervention takes place preventing this global cut, anesthesiology will take a 12% cut and radiology will be cut 16%. Furthermore physician fees will face drastic cuts – an epidural in a facility setting will be cut 1% to 5% while the same procedure in a non-facility will be cut from 23% to 38%. ASIPP’s comment letter to CMS which can be found on the ASIPP Web site homepage, illustrates these points more thoroughly.

Whether you have already written your representatives and senators in Congress or not yet done so, send this new letter today. Ask your family, friends, patients to join you in this fight. We have once again provided you with a simple way to send your letter through Capwiz using the links below: Sample Letter for Physicians Sample Letter for Staff and Patients

If you wish to send letters on your own letterhead, links to sample letters can be found on the ASIPP homepage. Let our motto be "Pay Now or Pay Later," and let's pay now with our letters and time.

Click on the following link to read the Oct. 6, 2006 comment letter ASIPP sent to CMS: CMS Comment Letter

Many members have e-mailed and called requesting names and addresses of their representative and senators. You can find this information and more by clicking on the following link: Capwiz

As we enter into discussions with CMS regarding the practice expense survey, we are faced with the need to increase our 09 interventional pain management specialty designation. Currently CMS is claiming there are too few interventional pain management physicians, consequently this will significantly weaken our strength as we deal with issues related to practice expense survey.

We need every member to join this effort. ASIPP would like to know if you have changed your specialty designation to 09. If you are not an interventional pain physician and do not practice interventional pain management 50% of the time, you should register as pain medicine (72). This is extremely important; this is the one opportunity we have to prevent radical deterioration of our specialty. If we do not act, we can only blame ourselves for our demise.

ASIPP is also working with ISIS and AAPM to improve the registration of specialty designation. We need to hear from you as to how you are registered so that we can work with CMS and AMA on this issue. A survey letter will arrive to all members soon but you can also find the survey letter on the ASIPP Web site

Click here to download the CMS form to change your specialty designation.

The current Deputy Administrator, Leslie Norwalk will assume the duties of acting agency administrator beginning Oct. 15. Current administrator Mark McClellan announced his resignation last month.

Norwalk, who has been at CMS for five years, has served as the agency's chief operating officer and as acting director of its Center for Beneficiary Choices. Prior to joining CMS, Norwalk practiced law at the Washington, D.C., office of Epstein, Becker and Green and served in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel during the administration of George H.W. Bush. Kuhn, who joined CMS in 2004, is a former corporate vice president for advocacy at Premier, a not-for-profit hospital association, and former vice president for federal relations at the D.C. office of the American Hospital Association.

CMS release the quarterly update to the Correct Coding Initiative (CCI) edits, version 12.3, effective Oct. 1, 2006. No major changes were reported.

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NPI: Get It. Share It. Use It. As noted in previous announcements by the CMS and its contractors, the Agency plans to begin testing the new software that has been developed to use the National Provider Identifier (NPI) in the existing Medicare fee-for-service claims processing systems. Providers have until May 23, 2007, before they are required to submit claims with only an NPI.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced awards totaling $58,025,562 through the Compassion Capital Fund (CCF). The awards, to 420 faith-based and community organizations, are designed to help grass- roots faith-based and community organizations enhance their ability to provide a wide range of social services for those in need. Those services include aid for homeless persons, at-risk youth and rural communities and initiatives to empower youth and promote healthy marriage. “These awards are central to President Bush’s agenda of compassion toward those in need,” said HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt. “By partnering with faith- based and community organizations, the Bush Administration is strengthening social services for millions of citizens.”

The final rule establishes the fee schedule for DEA registration and reregistration fees relating to the registration and control of the manufacture, distribution and dispensing of controlled substances and listed chemicals. Specifically, the final rule revises the fee schedule for controlled substances and List I chemical handlers so that all manufacturers, distributors, importers, exporters, and dispensers of controlled substances and of List I chemicals pay an annual fee, by registrant category, regardless of whether they handle controlled substances or List I chemicals.

This rule is effective November 1, 2006. The new fee schedule will be in effect for all new applications postmarked on or after November 1, 2006 and for all renewal applications postmarked on or after November 1, 2006.

To see the final rule go to: http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/fed_regs/r ules/2006/fr0829.htm

According to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), CMS should improve allocation of funds to the Medicare Integrity Program (MIP). The program identifies and contests improper payments caused by fraud and abuse within the federal agency.

For fiscal years 1997 through 2005, CMS' MIP expenditures increased for each of its five program integrity activities. Throughout those years, the agency's allocation for audits increased by about 45% to $207.6 million, by 40% for medical reviews to $165.9 million, by 49% for secondary payers to $151.5 million and by 89% for benefit integrity to $118.5 million, according to CQ HealthBeat. CMS also increased its allocation for provider education by 590% following a FY 2002 decision to use MIP funds for outreach activities to health care providers. The report recommends that CMS allocate funds to MIP based on the effectiveness of its program integrity activities and the workload and risk of contractors who review claims and identify fraud under the program. CQ HealthBeat reports that CMS also may need to reallocate funds from Medicare parts A and B to account for program integrity activities related to the Medicare prescription drug benefit. CMS agreed with most of GAO's findings, but expressed concern that the report emphasized a quantitative measure to track dollars saved in relation to dollars spent as a method for allocating funds. CMS said the measure could be used as an indicator of effectiveness but not as the basis for funding decisions (CQ HealthBeat, 10/10).

Patients in Michigan now have a new way of finding out if their healthcare charges are reasonable. Starting this week they can utilize an online service called Spectrum Health, a Grand Rapids-based health system. The service began listing estimated charges for more than 100 inpatient and outpatient procedures on its Web site, www.sp ectrum-health.org/averagecharges. The list is considered the most complete of its kind in the state.