IN THIS ISSUE 

1. Register Now Open for ASIPP's 17th Annual Meeting
2. Affordable Care Act in the News
3. Just a Few More Participants Needed for Physician Survey on Epidural Steroid Injections 
4. ASIPP Hosting Ultrasound for Non-spinal Techniques Review and Hands-on Workshop in Vegas 
5. More Evidence Arthritis, Pain Relieving Drugs May Contribute to Stroke Death 
6. OA Outcomes Improved With Physical Therapy 
7. Is your office in compliance with the HIPAA Omnibus Rule? 
8. SAMHSA Updates Opioid Overdose Toolkit To Include Naloxone Recommendations 
9. Novel National Registry Measures Lumbar Surgery Effectiveness 
10. Fed Up! Coalition Sends Letter to DHS Venting Frustration about Opioid Epidemic 
11. Honing check-ins with facial recognition software  
12. Submit Your Abstract Today for 17th Annual Meeting Abstract Session 
13. State Society News 
14. Physician Wanted 

Register Now Open for ASIPP's 17th Annual Meeting

The American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians' (ASIPP) 17th Annual Meeting, Embrace the Future: Survival Strategies for Interventional Pain Management, in collaboration with the Florida Society of Interventional Pain Physicians will take place in Orlando, Florida on Thursday, April 9 through Saturday, April 11, 2015 at the Loews Royal Pacific Resort at Universal Orlando® Loews Royal Pacific Resort at Universal Orlando®.

This year's program should prove to be one of the most exciting, enriching, and memorable of any meeting we have ever held. This year's educational events will include evidence-based medicine , practice management, drug therapy, refinement in evidence synthesis, advocacy in IPM, abstract presentations, Resident/Fellow session for emergence into practice, and much more.

The meeting will feature: 

• John J. Nance: New York Times Best-Seller Author, ABC Analyst, Professional Speaker, & Consultanthttp://www.johnnanceassociates.com
• Dr. Devi Nampiaparampil: Physician, Researcher, and Assistant Professor at NYU School of Medicine http://doctordevi.com/ 
• P. Christopher Music:Best-Selling Author, International Speaker, and Financial Prosperity Coach http://www.pchristophermusic.com/
• Laxmaiah Manchikanti, MD: Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, ASIPP and SIPMS 

Lecture Series Highlights:

Thursday: Manchikanti Distinguished Lecture Series

Surviving the Affordable Care Act Earthquake: Implications and Survival Strategies for Interventional Pain Management

Speaker: John J. Nance (http://www.johnnanceassociates.com)

Friday: Raj-Racz Distinguished Lecture Series

IPM in the Age of Explosive Information Technology and Media:  Is it Indispensable or Irrelevant

Devi E. Nampiaparampil, MD (http://doctordevi.com/ )

BROCHURE COMING SOON!

Click HERE to Register

What exactly was Gruber's role in the creation of the health law?

What was Jonathan Gruber's role in putting together the Affordable Care Act?

That question has been hotly debated in light of recently circulated remarks that the MIT economics professor made about the "stupidity of the American voter" and the "lack of transparency" that was required to secure the passage of the health-care law.

Washington Post

BRISBANE, Australia - President Obama dismissed renewed criticism of his signature health-care law Sunday and disputed an assertion from a former adviser involved in its creation who said the administration had deceived lawmakers.

Jonathan Gruber, an economist, suggested last year that the legislation passed in part because of the "stupidity of the American voter" and a "lack of transparency" in its funding mechanisms.

Washington Post

Undoubtedly I will hear that question many times in the coming weeks.

The answer is that this enrollment process is so screwed up we will have no earthly idea how many new people have enrolled and how many 2014 enrollees remained on the program until at least April 2015.

Health Policy and Market Place

Surprises Lurk for People Re-Enrolling on HealthCare.gov

In a twist, an influx of lower-priced health plans on HealthCare.gov could lead many Americans to pay more for coverage next year thanks to smaller insurance tax credits.

A handful of insurers in 14 states are offering aggressively low premiums on the federal insurance enrollment site, which reopens Saturday, in a bid to undercut big rivals who snapped up customers last year.

Access to this article may be limited.

The Democrats who were caught standing on the beach last week when the GOP's 40-foot wave washed over them are now explaining why it wasn't their fault.

No. 1: It's not us; it's what's his name, the unpopular president. (And that awful Valerie Jarrett. )

No. 2: It was a midterm election with a bad map; we'll be back in 2016. Hillary to the rescue.

Official Obama Explanation : My ideas and policies are fine; I just have a messaging problem.

Wall Street Journal

Access to this article may be limited.

Just a Few More Participants Needed for Physician Survey on Epidural Steroid Injections

A survey is being conducted to support a study on the technical performance of epidural steroid injections.

The benefit of completing this survey will be a peer-reviewed publication of the group data that informs the clinical community of the current practices that relate to performance of epidural steroid injections. 

Click on the following link to take the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/STATEOFESI

The survey takes about 5-10 minutes to complete. 

The study has been approved by the Institutional Review Board of NYU School of Medicine. 

ASIPP Hosting Ultrasound for Non-spinal Techniques Review and Hands-on Workshop in Vegas

  The Ultrasound for Non-spinal techniques Review and Hands-on Workshop will be Feb. 27, 2015 and the Hands-on Cadaver Workshop for IPM with be Feb. 28 - March 1, 2015

The course will have three levels: Basic, Intermediate, and ABIPP Exam Preparation (Advanced) plus online Videos and Presentations.

BROCHURE COMING SOON!

Room block:

The Venetian

3355 South Las Vegas Boulevard

Las Vegas, NV 89109

Phone: 702-414-1000

Click HERE to register

MINNEAPOLIS -- November 5, 2014 -- Commonly prescribed, older drugs for arthritis and pain may increase the risk of death from stroke, according to a study published in the online edition of the journal Neurology.

The drugs examined in the study, COX-2 inhibitors, include older drugs diclofenac, etodolac, nabumeton and meloxicam, as well as newer drugs, including celecoxib and rofecoxib. The study also looked at non-selective non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), which include common pain relievers such as ibuprofen and naproxen.

DG News

BOSTON -- Adding either manual or exercise physical therapy (PT) to usual care for patients with osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee and hip can significantly improve pain and stiffness according to 2-year follow-up of a randomized, controlled trial.

"If you're not prescribing this for everyone with OA, well, get with the program," said lead investigator J. Haxby Abbott, DPT, PhD, from the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand.

"Exercise has been recommended for a while now, but still most people don't get referred. What are the barriers? Some people say they think it only works for a few weeks and then it's a waste of time -- well, no, here we have a 2-year follow-up showing it works."

The HIPAA Omnibus Rule marks the most sweeping changes to the HIPAA privacy and security rules since they were first implemented nearly 18 years ago. Under the rule, first-time violations can be up to $50,000 per incident per year and repeat violations can result in a $1.5 million fine.

With that much at stake financially, you need to make sure your practice is working toward compliance, or to review what you've already done. What steps should you take? The following list of suggestions will walk you through some of the most important provisions.

Medical Practice Insider

SAMHSA Updates Opioid Overdose Toolkit To Include Naloxone Recommendations

The federal government is now recommending that chronic pain patients taking high doses of extended-release/long-acting opioids also be prescribed naloxone to prevent overdose.

The new recommendation was part of an update made to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMHSA) resource The Opioid Overdose Prevention Toolkit, which was developed to help address the growing number of opioid-related overdose deaths in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drug overdose deaths increased by 118% from 1999 to 2011. There were 41,340 drug overdose deaths in 2013. Of these deaths, 55% were related to prescription drugs; 74% of the pharmaceutical overdoses involved opioid analgesics.

Pain Medicine News

Novel National Registry Measures Lumbar Surgery Effectiveness

Lumbar surgery is effective 12 months after in all but 13.8% of patients-a statistic obtained, along with predictors of poor outcome, from the National Neurosurgery Quality and Outcomes Database (N2QOD), a two-year-old, nationwide, prospective, longitudinal outcomes registry that spans 43 sites.

For this study, N2QOD provided data on 12-month surgical outcomes for patients with lumbar disk herniation (n=376) and spondylolisthesis (n=247). In all patient-reported outcomes (back pain, leg pain, Oswestry Disability Index [ODI] and EQ-5D), there was aggregate improvement at three and 12 months (P<0.05). For patients who did not exhibit ODI improvement, significant predictors of worse or unchanged ODI were found at 12 months in both groups: educational level, liability claim and baseline ODI. In addition, unique predictors found for disk herniation were age, duration of symptoms and depression, and for spondylolisthesis were gender, smoking and diabetes.

Pain Medicine News

Fed Up! Coalition Sends Letter to DHS Venting Frustration about Opioid Epidemic

The mission of The FED UP! Coalition is to create one voice calling for an end to the epidemic of addiction and overdose deaths attributed to opioids (including heroin) and other prescription drugs.

 The Fed Up! coalition of organizations is frustrated by the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) continued approval of dangerous new opioid analgesics. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, prescriptions for these medications have skyrocketed over the past decade, causing an epidemic of addiction and overdose deaths.

The coalition has sent a letter to Sylvia Burwell, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), requesting leadership changes at FDA. Over the past several months, HHS received similar letters from medical groups, members of Congress, governors and attorneys general expressing concern about FDA's approval of Zohydro, a powerful new opioid analgesic.

Click HERE to read letter.

Physicians may soon be kissing their keycards and punch-clocks goodbye in favor of something that is a lot harder to misplace - their face.

Indeed, facial recognition software is gaining traction worldwide. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, for instance, just launched its Next Generation Identification system, which will allow police to identify suspects using just their faces.

On a scale far less criminal, some physician practices have been using the same type of software and method to upgrade their time management and attendance processes.