IN THIS ISSUE 

1. Are Epidural Injections Efficacious and Safe? An Important Message from the ASIPP Board of Directors 
2. Still Time to Register for the Spinal and Non-Spinal Interventional Techniques Review Course and Cadaver Workshop   
3. We Successfully Challenged the Constitutionality of Washington's Health Technology Clinical Committee
4. Healthcare and pharma cyber security rated worst in S&P 500
5. Data discrepancies in health sign-ups
6. Healthcare data breaches decline, but ACA could be increasing risks
7. 'Vaporizers' Are the New Draw in E-Cigarettes
8. FDA E-Cig Complaints Pile Up
9. Medicare Frequently Overpays Doctors For Patients' Visits
10. ASIPP Now Offers Animations to Enhance Your Communication and Marketing Needs
11. Study Finds Nearly 29% of World Population Is Overweight or Obese
12. Efforts to Curb College Costs Face Resistance
13. State Society News 
14. Physician Wanted 

Few people have ever heard of Washington's Health Technology Clinical Committee, or HTCC. Here's a quick overview: It's a committee of unelected individuals given the power to evaluate health technologies and determine whether participating Washington state agencies may lawfully cover them. HTCC decisions carry the force of law. The decisions affect the health care of hundreds of thousands, if not more than a million, Washingtonians.

Despite having this breathtaking power over matters of health-matters of life and death-the law establishing the HTCC rendered the committee totally unaccountable. Avenues for reviewing HTCC decisions were explicitly foreclosed. When the HTCC disfavored a technology, regardless of whether its decision was right or wrong, it meant that courts and participating agencies were prohibited from considering whether the technology was "medically necessary, or proper and necessary treatment" in the case of the individual patient. RCW 70.14.120(3). 

100 PERCENT ISAAC 

Healthcare and pharmaceutical companies have the worst cyber security among Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500, and could suffer from wide-scale security breaches in 2014 similar to those experienced by retail companies such as Target and Neiman Marcus, according to a recent report.

BitSight Technologies, a securities ratings company, examined the cyber health of companies on the S&P 500, and found that 82% had been victims of some sort of security breach. Healthcare and pharmaceutical companies ranked the lowest among the four industry categories studied, because of its high volume of incidents and slow response times.

The finance industry ranked best in cyber security, followed closely by the utilities industry. The retail industry, which was rated with a poor performance, came in third. The finance industry has made cyber security a priority and a part of business operations, which led to it outperforming other sectors, according to the study.

Medical Economics 

 More than 2 million people who got health insurance under President Barack Obama's law have data discrepancies that could jeopardize coverage for some, a government document shows.

About 1 in 4 people who signed up have discrepancies, creating a huge paperwork jam for the feds and exposing some consumers to repayment demands, or possibly even loss of coverage, if they got too generous a subsidy.

The 7-page slide presentation from the Health and Human Services department was provided to The Associated Press as several congressional committees are actively investigating the discrepancies, most of which involve important details on income, citizenship and immigration status.

Yahoo News 

Changes to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in 2012 made business associates of HIPAA-covered businesses also responsible for safeguarding protected health information. But nearly three-quarters of survey respondents said they were "not confident" or only "somewhat confident" that their business associates could detect a data breach incident, perform an incident risk assessment, and notify them as required under a HIPAA business associate agreement. While most of the causes of breaches have stayed fairly consistent over the four years in which the survey has been conducted, only 20% of respondents reported a criminal attack in 2010, compared with 40% in 2013.

Medical Economics  

The fastest growth in e-cigarettes comes from devices called 'vaporizers' sold in specialty shops like Popie's Vapor Lounge, in Marlton, N.J. Will Figg for The Wall Street Journal

ATLANTA-VapeRite, a specialty store in a strip mall here, represents the latest rage in electronic cigarettes and the newest headache for Big Tobacco: Do-It-Yourself.

Shelves are crammed with more than 100 flavored liquids with names like Purple Haze, Red Riding Hood and Cherry Cola, alongside gadgets like refillable cartridges, heating coils and liquid drippers that customers can use to build their own e-cigarettes.

Wall Street Journal 

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FDA E-Cig Complaints Pile Up

NYU School of Medicine associate professor Dr. Devi Nampiaparampil (Dr. Devi) discusses the possible side effects of e-cigs and casual marijuana use. on the Fox Business Network's "Money with Melissa Francis" 

  Click here to watch Dr. Devi's Video Clip  

Medicare Frequently Overpays Doctors For Patients' Visits

Medicare spent $6.7 billion too much for office visits and other patient evaluations in 2010, according to a report from the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services.

But in its reply to the findings, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs Medicare, said it doesn't plan to review the billings of doctors who almost always charge for the most expensive visits because it isn't cost-effective to do so.

The inspector general's report, released today, estimates that overpayments account for 21 percent of the $32.3 billion spent on evaluation and management services in 2010. The evaluation and management category includes office visits, emergency room assessments and inpatient hospital evaluations.

NPR News  

ASIPP Now Offers Animations to Enhance Your Communication and Marketing Needs

ASIPP Marketing Services (AMS) is now a reseller of View Medica Pain Management procedure animations. Procedure animations can be used on ASIPP-TV24 in your waiting room, your web site, and/or hand held devices in consultations with your patients. These high-quality, low-cost animations can be purchased through ASIPP by contacting Ray Lane at rlane@asipp.org or 270-554-9412. ext. 220. 

The obesity epidemic is global: 2.1 billion people, or about 29% of the world's population, were either overweight or obese in 2013, and nearly two out of three of the obese live in developing countries, according to a study released Thursday.

The prevalence of overweight and obese people rose by 27.5% for adults and 47.1% for children between 1980 and 2013, according to the study, led by researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington and published Thursday in the journal the Lancet. In 1980, 857 million people were overweight or obese.

The Wall Street Journal 

WASHINGTON-Obama administration initiatives intended to help restrain soaring college costs are facing resistance from schools and from a bipartisan bloc of lawmakers looking to protect institutions in their districts.

Groups representing colleges and universities this week formally opposed the administration's plan to more tightly oversee programs that officials say leave students in steep debt but with weak job prospects. The new rules cover for-profit schools along with career-training programs-those that lead to certificates, but not degrees, in a given field, such as mechanics or cosmetology-at public schools and nonprofits. A bipartisan group in Congress is seeking ways to kill the plan, which the administration wants to have in place by November.

The Wall Street Journal 

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