IN THIS ISSUE 

1. Excessive use of opioids, abuse, and deaths continue to be the focus
2. ASIPP Hosting Ultrasound for Non-spinal Techniques Review and Hands-on Workshop in Vegas 
3. Register Now Open for ASIPP's 17th Annual Meeting
4. Affordable Care Act in the News

5. Economic Growth Up 

6. Dr. Cassidy, a friend of ASIPP, wins Louisiana Senate
7. Deal reached on $1.01 trillion spending bill
8. D.C Week: CMS Addresses Medicare Fraud, ACO Penalties 
9. Obama: Racial problems won't be solved overnight
10. Why Everything You Think About Aging May Be Wrong 
11. Professor Tribe Takes Obama to School 
12. Do "welfare" recipients get $35,000 in benefits a year? 
13. New Medicare Rules Aim to Reduce Abuse 
14. Electronic Medical Records Webinar To be Rescheduled for 2015 
15. Submit Your Abstract Today for 17th Annual Meeting Abstract Session 
16. State Society News 
17. Physician Wanted 

Excessive use of opioids, abuse, and deaths continue to be the focus

America's Pain Points | Express Scripts

America claims less than 5% of the world's population, yet it consumes roughly 80% of the world's opioid supply. Knowing the potential for misuse of these medications, and facing an increase in opioid-related deaths in this country, we wanted a deeper understanding of how patients in the U.S. are using these medications so we can identify additional ways to protect them from the risks associated with their use.

Click HERE to read Express Scripts Report
 

In A Nation in Pain, our research revealed a drop in short-term use of opioids, and stabilization in the number of patients using these medications longer term, which is in contrast to the increases seen in the past. Both trends indicate that doctors are being more cautious about prescribing these pain medications.

Click HERE to read America's Pain Points
 

However, the research uncovered some concerning increases in the amount of prescription opioid medications Americans use, and the frequency in which these medications are used in dangerously high doses and in risky combinations with other medications.

Express Scripts

Advocacy Group Calls for Resignation of FDA Commissioner Over Opioid-Product Approvals

Fed Up!, a coalition of consumer-advocacy organizations, grabbed national headlines with a rally on Capitol Hill on Sept. 28, to pressure FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, MD, to step down.

Members of Fed Up! said the FDA's opioid-product approvals reflect a long-standing pattern of putting the interests of analgesic makers ahead of the public's health. They called for an immediate and strong federal response to the wave of opioid addiction and overdose deaths in the United States. Several leaders of Fed Up! signed a Sept. 23 letter to Sylvia Mathews Burwell, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to express frustration at the FDA's "continued approval of new, dangerous, high-dose opioid analgesics that are fueling high rates of addiction and overdose deaths," and that "without new leadership at FDA, the opioid crisis will continue unabated."

Pain Medicine News

This story is part of a joint project by Oklahoma Watch and The Oklahoman, examining the state's high rate of prescription painkiller overdoses.

If there were an official business model for a high-volume pain clinic, drug enforcers say, it would probably resemble the Wellness Clinic in Roland.

Located in Sequoyah County a few miles west of Fort Smith, Ark., the clinic was operating with a simple set of ground rules and standard procedures when Oklahoma authorities investigated it during 2013 and early 2014.

KGOU News

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.

Click HERE to view brochure

Room block:

The Venetian

3355 South Las Vegas Boulevard

Las Vegas, NV 89109

Phone: 702-414-1000

Click HERE for Hotel link.

Click HERE to register

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

Click HERE for Exhibitor Prospectus

Economic Growth Up

Even though we continue to see lack of income growth with stagnation and layoffs in health care, it appears that the economy is moving in the right direction finally.

Friday's buoyant jobs report for November put a coda on the most promising month for the economy in years. First Republicans added control of the Senate to their dominance of the House with enough seats to drive a renewed growth agenda. Now the jobs report reveals a hiring pace that reflects new business confidence.

The slow-growth recovery since 2009 has had jobs fillips before, only to disappoint later, but it's hard to find much to dislike in November's report. The economy created 321,000 new jobs, and only 7,000 came from government. Nearly all parts of the private economy contributed, including 28,000 new jobs in manufacturing. With total upward revisions of 44,000 in September and October, the economy has added 2.7 million jobs in the last 12 months.

Wall Street Journal

Access to this article may be limited.

Due to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a majority of CFOs said they expect their labor costs to rise next year, with some financial leaders saying their companies plan to reduce their workforce to handle the increasing costs, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2015 CFO Outlook.

Of the 602 financial leaders surveyed, 69 percent said they expect their labor costs to increase next year due to the PPACA, and below are the steps those companies are taking to help offset the long-term healthcare costs.

Becker's

National Health Expenditures continued slow growth in 2013

Health spending continued to grow at a slow rate last year the Office of the Actuary (OACT) at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reported today. In 2013, health spending grew at 3.6 percent and total national health expenditures in the United States reached $2.9 trillion, or $9,255 per person. The annual OACT report showed health spending continued a pattern of low growth-between 3.6 percent and 4.1-- percent for five consecutive years. The report is being published today in Health Affairs.

The recent low rates of national health spending growth coincide with modest growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which averaged 3.9 percent per year since the end of the severe economic recession in 2010. As a result, the share of the economy devoted to health remained unchanged over this period at 17.4 percent.

CMS

Top 15 challenges facing physicians in 2015

Solo practitioner Paul Sueno, MD, had a good idea of the challenges he would face when he opened his private practice in Tacoma, Washington, in 2012. His late father, also a physician, had practiced in the same community, and Sueno grew up helping his father and learning about medicine.

Immersing himself in every detail, from filing insurance claims to selecting equipment, Sueno has built the four-employee practice from the ground up. But now that he's gotten a handle on the business side and made it through some "nerve wracking" moments, Sueno says the practice is doing well-and he is glad he didn't become an employee of a giant organization.

Medical Economics

Dr. Cassidy, a friend of ASIPP, wins Louisiana Senate

Sen. Mary Landrieu loses runoff in Louisiana to Rep. Bill Cassidy

Republicans put the finishing touches on a triumphant midterm election by picking up a ninth Senate seat Saturday when Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) defeated Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) in a runoff election.

Landrieu's loss means there will be no Democratic senators from the Deep South when the new Congress is sworn in early next year. It will end Landrieu's tenure in the Senate after three terms and deprives Democrats of holding a single statewide elected office in Louisiana.

The Washington Post

GOP Adds Veteran Legislator Bill Cassidy to Senate Tally

Wall Street Journal

Cassidy defeats Landrieu in Louisiana Senate runoff

USA Today

Mary Landrieu Is Defeated by Bill Cassidy in Louisiana Senate Runoff

NY Times

Congressional leaders unveiled a massive $1.01 trillion spending bill Tuesday night that will keep most of the federal government funded through September.

The legislation is expected to pass in the coming days and will allow the incoming Republican-controlled Congress to clear the decks of lingering spending issues while setting the stage for a prolonged fight with President Obama over immigration policy.

At 1,603 pages, the bill includes at least $1.2 billion for agencies to deal with the influx of unaccompanied immigrant children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. There's also money to fight the rise of the Islamic State and $5.4 billion to fight the threat of Ebola. But there are also significant changes to campaign finance laws and potential cuts to retiree pension plans. Democrats were cheering bigger budgets for enforcement at agencies created after the 2008 economic collapse.

The Washington Post

U.S. Lawmakers Agree on Spending Bill

Wall Street Journal

This week in Washington, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced new regulations to stomp out Medicare fraud and proposed delaying penalties for poorly performing ACOs, while the FDA approved another pump-sensor combo for insulin-dependent diabetics.

Also this week, MedPage Today News Editor Joyce Frieden sat down with Jocelyn Samuels, director of the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the Department of Health and Human Services, to discuss her office's responsibilities and its expanded powers under the Affordable Care Act.

MedPage Today

Obama: Racial problems won't be solved overnight

President Obama talks about the nation's rising racial tensions in an interview to be broadcast Monday, asking a young, African-American audience to be both persistent and patient.

"This isn't going to be solved overnight," Obama tells BET News in an interview to be aired Monday. "This is something that is deeply rooted in our society, it's deeply rooted in our history."

Speaking in the wake of nationwide protests over grand jury refusals to indict police officers for deaths of black men in Missouri and New York, Obama said he would ask all young people to remember two things.

USA TODAY

Everyone knows that as we age, our minds and bodies decline-and life inevitably becomes less satisfying and enjoyable.

Everyone knows that cognitive decline is inevitable.

Everyone knows that as we get older, we become less productive at work.

Everyone, it seems, is wrong.

Wall Street Journal

In his Harvard days, Barack Obama studied under law professor Laurence Tribe. Perhaps the future President spent too much time at the law review and missed the part about limited powers. We say that because Professor Tribe delivered a constitutional rebuke this week to the Obama Administration that is remarkable coming from a titan of the liberal professoriate.

Mr. Tribe joined with the world's largest private coal company, Peabody Energy , to criticize the "executive overreach" of the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed rule to regulate carbon emissions from existing power plants. In joint comments filed with the EPA, the professor accuses the agency of abusing statutory law, violating the Constitution's Article I, Article II, the separation of powers, the Tenth and Fifth Amendments, and in general displaying contempt for the law.

Wall Street Journal

Access to this article may be limited.

"A single parent with a couple kids can easily get $35,000 a year in total benefits between the health care and the earned income credit and the FoodShare and the low-income housing and what have you. ... That's after taxes."

- Incoming Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.), on UpFront with Mike Gousha, Nov. 30, 2014. 

The representative-elect has been a longtime critic of the current welfare system. Grothman, who will replace a retiring Republican, began this fight in the Wisconsin legislature as state senator, saying the federal and Wisconsin governments are "working to encourage single motherhood and discouraging children in two-parent families." (Mea culpa: We made an error in an earlier version of this article, stating incorrectly that Grothman would replace a Democrat rather than a Republican).

The Washington Post

The Obama administration on Wednesday strengthened Medicare's authority to kick doctors and other medical providers out of the federal program for abusively billing the government.

The move represents a significant shift in how the government tackles waste in Medicare, the insurance program for the elderly and disabled. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, the main part of Medicare issued $45.8 billion in improper payments, representing nearly 13% of its total spending.

The new rules allow Medicare to revoke the billing privileges of any doctor, medical-equipment seller or other health-service provider who demonstrates a pattern of billing the program inappropriately.

Wall Street Journal

Electronic Medical Records Webinar To be Rescheduled for 2015

ASIPP's Webianr for Dec. 11 titled No Electronic Medical Record (EMR) at your office yet? Let the penalties begin...

has been postponed until 2015.

This webinar will include information on: Choosing a 'right sized' EMR for your practice, Implementation process and the technology choices available, CMS Incentive Program, Hardship application and exclusions by specialty, Privacy & Security and more. With a new year approaching CMS will be mandating a schedule that will penalize providers who are not using and EMR. Considerations that will be considered are:

• What is an EMR and why do you need it?
• Pain points of an implementation that include patient interaction
• Increased loss of revenue every year you are not on an EMR
• Different types of EMR's (on-site or hosted)
• Medicaid incentives still around in 2015 for implementation
• Improving patient outcomes from shared EMR systems
• Security and Privacy of your 'Electronic Chart'
• Patients want to be 'connected' and how to control this
• Improved Revenue Cycle through an EMR