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ASIPP just received a CAC Member Newsletter from CGS which covers KY and Ohio. However, these issues affect the entire country.
One of the important issues is that they are considering the coverage of facet joint interventions for pain management. As of now, therapeutic facet joint interventions are limited to radiofrequency neurotomy and intraarticular injections, excluding therapeutic facet joint nerve blocks. We have applied for these to be included.
Dr. Manchikanti will be presenting at a virtual meeting on this issue on Tuesday, February 13, 2024, from 4:00-5:00 pm ET or 3:00-4:00 pm CT.
Click here to register.
There is also a consideration of cervical fusion if you are interested in it.
These meetings are a good way to keep up with what is happening in interventional pain management.
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Physicians groups on January 17 hailed a new federal rule requiring health insurers to streamline and disclose more information about their prior authorization processes, saying it will improve patient care and reduce doctors' administrative burden.
Health insurers participating in federal programs, including Medicare Advantage and Medicaid, must now respond to expedited prior authorization requests within 72 hours and other requests within 7 days under the long-awaited final rule, released on January 17 by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Insurers also must include their reasons for denying a prior authorization request and will be required to publicly release data on denial and approval rates for medical treatment. They'll also need to give patients more information about their decisions to deny care. Insurers must comply with some of the rule's provisions by January 2026 and others by January 2027.
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Congratulations to the
2024 ASIPP Award Recipients!
We are honored to present the following recipients:
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Giants of Pain Management
Richard Derby, MD and
David Schultz, MD
Lifetime Achievement Award
Ramsin Benyamin, MD, Aaron Calodney, MD, and Allan Parr, MD
Raj/Racz Excellence Award
Laxmaiah Manchikanti, MD
Manchikanti Excellence Award
Sheri Albers, DO
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Falco Excellence Award
Obi Onyewu, MD
Distinguished Research Award
Ramsin Benyamin, MD, Leo Kapural, MD, PhD, Konstantin Slavin, MD, Amol Soin, MD, and Ricardo Vallejo, MD, PhD
Distinguished Young Physician
Allan Parr, III, MD
League of Presidents
Sal Abdi, MD, PhD
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In December, in what's known as the "Take Care of Maya" case, a Florida jury returned a record $261 million verdict against Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, St. Petersburg, Florida, for its treatment of a young patient and her family after an emergency room visit.
A month earlier, in New York, a jury ordered Westchester Medical Center Health Network to pay $120 million to a patient and his family following delayed stroke care that resulted in brain damage.
Mega malpractice awards like these are rising against physicians and hospitals around the country, according to new data from TransRe, an international reinsurance company that tracks large verdicts.
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Virtual
February 17, March 16, & April 30
Click here for the complete list of upcoming exams.
ABIPP Part I; ABIPP Path - Combined DCCPM/CSM virtual exam;
ABIPP Competency Exam in IPM; ABIPP Competency Exam in Regenerative Medicine;
CSM Competency Exam; DCCPM Competency Exam
In Person
October 18, 2024
ABIPP Part II - Practical Examination
Lab Venue: MERI, 44 S. Cleveland Street, Memphis, TN 38104
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Scammers hacked into doctors’ electronic prescribing accounts, wrote tens of thousands of bogus orders for addictive drugs, then had runners pick them up from pharmacies in multiple states so they could be illegally resold online, prosecutors in New York announced Friday.
The man who prosecutors say led the sophisticated drug ring, Devin Anthony Magarian, 21, of Kissimmee, Florida, pleaded not guilty during a court appearance on Long Island and was ordered detained at least until his next court date on Feb. 5.
Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly described the scheme as the modern-day equivalent of stealing a doctor’s prescription pad. She also said it exposed vulnerabilities in the e-prescription system used by doctors and other prescribers to electronically send prescriptions directly to pharmacies.
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Here's why this unregulated compound is known as "gas station heroin"
An uptick in adverse events connected to unregulated tianeptine products -- often referred to as "gas station heroin" -- along with the voluntary recall of a popular product have brought renewed attention to the atypical tricyclic antidepressant.
Earlier this week, the company that makes a product called Neptune's Fix issued a voluntary recall of several of its products due to "undeclared tianeptine." The move follows a warning from FDA last November urging consumers not to purchase or use Neptune's Fix products or products with tianeptine, given reports of seizures, loss of consciousness, and death.
So what is tianeptine and why is it becoming so popular?
Daniel Lasoff, MD, emergency medicine physician and toxicologist at University of California San Diego Health, told MedPage Today that the compound "has some opioid receptor activity, which is unusual for a tricyclic antidepressant."
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Excellent opportunities for Residents & Fellows
at ASIPP's 2024 Annual Meeting:
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Resident & Fellow Scholarship — Limited to 100 - less than 15 left!
- Abstract Session (April 4, 3:30–5:30pm) and Podium Presentation for Best Abstracts during General Session (April 5, 3:30–4:15pm)
- Half-Day Session dedicated to Young Physicians in Interventional Pain Management
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Severe memory loss, akin to today’s dementia epidemic, was extremely rare in ancient Greece and Rome, indicating these conditions may largely stem from modern lifestyles and environments.
Analyzing classical texts, the study found minimal mentions of cognitive impairments in these ancient civilizations, contrasting sharply with current dementia rates. The comparison with the Tsimane Amerindians, who lead a preindustrial lifestyle and show low dementia rates, further supports the theory that physical activity levels and environmental factors significantly influence dementia prevalence.
This historical and comparative analysis underscores the impact of sedentary behavior and pollution on cognitive health, offering insights into preventing modern-age dementias.
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ASIPP State Society Meetings | |
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Aiming to make life-saving medications more affordable, the Biden administration on Thursday sent offers to drug companies that make 10 widely prescribed drugs for older Americans.
Thursday's effort was the opening salvo over Medicare drug price negotiations. Department of Health and Human Services officials did not reveal how much the government's price negotiators initially offered to pay pharmaceutical companies that make drugs to treat conditions such as heart failure, stroke, diabetes and autoimmune disease.
The drugs include Eliquis, Jardiance, Xarelto, Januvia, Farxiga, Entresto, Enbrel, Imbruvica, Stelara and the insulins Fiasp and NovoLog.
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Save $250 on Your TOBI Conference Registration
by Completing Our Quick Survey
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TOBI is dedicated to providing the best possible experience for our conference attendees—we ask that you complete this 60-second survey for us to better understand your preferences.
Those who complete the survey will receive a $250 discount on their TOBI Conference registration as our thanks!
*Discount unavailable for fellows, residents, and medical students
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Effectiveness of the 2023-2024 vaccine lands at 54% for symptomatic cases
The updated 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccine was approximately 54% effective against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection in adults, and was also effective against the JN.1 variant, which became predominant in January, CDC researchers said.
Overall, vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic COVID was 57% for people ages 18 to 49 years and 46% for people ages 50 and older, reported Ruth Link-Gelles, PhD, of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, and colleagues in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The updated vaccine is a monovalent XBB.1.5-derived vaccine, and there have been few estimates regarding its effectiveness, the authors noted. This study is the first to look at the vaccine's effectiveness against symptomatic COVID caused by the JN.1 variant, a derivative of BA.2.86.
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Reaction time to visual stimuli shows promise as a cognitive marker
Pronounced cognitive slowing distinguished people with long COVID from others, a cross-sectional study showed.
On a 30-second task measuring simple reaction time, moderate-to-severe cognitive slowing was evident among long COVID patients compared with age-matched healthy individuals who had previous symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection and recovered, reported Sijia Zhao, PhD, at the University of Oxford in England, and co-authors in eClinicalMedicine.
Long COVID patients responded to visual stimuli at about 3 standard deviations slower than healthy controls, Zhao and colleagues said. More than half (53.5%) of long COVID patients had a response speed slower than 2 standard deviations from the control mean, suggesting that slow reaction time was a common cognitive deficit.
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The first human patient has received an implant from brain-chip startup Neuralink on Sunday and is recovering well, the company's billionaire founder Elon Musk said.
"Initial results show promising neuron spike detection," Musk said in a post on the social media platform X on Monday.
Spikes are activity by neurons, which the National Institute of Health describes as cells that use electrical and chemical signals to send information around the brain and to the body.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had given the company clearance last year to conduct its first trial to test its implant on humans, a critical milestone in the startup's ambitions to help patients overcome paralysis and a host of neurological conditions.
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- ASIPP Members Only Site Information - | |
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To log in for the first time you will need to click “forgot password” at the bottom of the login window.
- Check your email and then log in as directed.
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If you have problems logging into your account, click here.
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Pain Medicine Case Reports (PMCR) and Editor-in-Chief Alaa Abd-Elsayed, MD, PhD would like to invite you to submit case reports and case series to the PMCR journal. Your article will be published free of charge.
Open access journals are freely available online for immediate worldwide open access to the full text of published articles. There is no subscription fee for open access journals. Open access journals are no different from traditional subscription-based journals: they undergo the same peer-review and quality control as any other scholarly journal.
Interested in becoming a member of the PMCR Editorial Board?
Editorial board members are asked to review 2-6 manuscripts per year. Please submit your most up-to-date CV to sgold@asipp.org for consideration.
For more information or to submit your articles, click here.
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Amr H. Badawy, MD
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Chronic groin pain can be debilitating to patients, reducing their overall quality of life. Peripheral nerve stimulation (PNS) is an emerging neuromodulation therapy that may be used for groin pain refractory to other treatment modalities.
CASE REPORT: An 86-year-old Hispanic man with a history of left inguinal hernia repair with mesh presenting chronic groin and abdominal pain was successfully treated with subthreshold PNS at the ilioinguinal nerve.
CONCLUSION: This case study demonstrated that subthreshold PNS can safely and effectively manage chronic groin and abdominal pain.
KEY WORDS: Peripheral nerve stimulation, chronic pain, ilioinguinal, groin pain
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Vladislav Pavlovich Zhitny, MD, Kenny Do, BS, Eric Kawana, BS, Jennifer Do, Michael C. Wajda, MD, Ryan T. Gualtier, MD, Adam J. Goodman, MD, and Shengping Zou, MD
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Millions of interventional pain procedures are performed each year to address chronic pain. The increase in these procedures also raises the concern of health risks associated with ionizing radiation for interventional pain management physicians who perform fluoroscopy-guided operations. Some health concerns include cancers, cataracts, and even pregnancy abnormalities. Little is known regarding the long-term and cumulative effects of small radiation doses.
OBJECTIVES: The objective of this systematic review was to identify common body parts that are exposed to ionizing radiation during interventional pain procedures and examine methods to help physicians reduce their radiation exposure.
STUDY DESIGN: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) checklist was used to comprehensively identify articles from 2 medical databases. The radiation dose to interventional pain management physicians obtained from relevant peer-reviewed articles were aggregated and used for analysis.
METHODS: PubMed was first used to collect the articles for two broad keyword searches of “radiation exposure pain management” and “radiation exposure interventionalist” with years ranging from 1956 – February 2023. EMBASE was also used to collect the articles for the two keyword searches of “radiation exposure pain management” and “radiation exposure interventionalist” with years ranging from 1969 – February 2023. This systematic approach yielded a total of 2,736 articles; 24 were included in our paper. The risk of bias for these articles was performed using the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool and the National Institutes of Health tool.
RESULTS: Through our systematic literature search, more than 3,577 patients were treated by 30 interventional pain management physicians. Some areas of exposure to radiation include the physician’s neck, chest, groin, hands, and eyes. One common body region that is exposed to radiation is the chest; our review found that wearing lead aprons can lower the radiation dose by more than 95%. Wearing protective equipment and managing the distance between the operator and fluoroscope can both independently lower the radiation dose by more than 90% as well. Our literature review also found that other body parts that are often overlooked in regard to radiation exposure are the eyes and hands. In our study, the radiation dose to the outside (unprotected) chest ranged from 0.008 ± 27 mrem to 1,345 mrem, the outside neck ranged from 572 mrem to 2,032 mrem, the outside groin ranged from 176 mrem to 1,292 mrem, the hands ranged from 0.006 ± 27.4 mrem to 0.114 ± 269 mrem, and the eyes ranged from 40 mrem to 369 mrem. When protective equipment was worn, the radiation exposure to the inside chest ranged from 0 mrem to 108 mrem, the inside neck ranged from 0 mrem to 68 mrem, and the inside groin ranged from 0 mrem to 15 mrem.
LIMITATIONS: Limitations of this study include its small sample size; only the radiation exposure of 30 interventional pain management physicians were examined. Furthermore, this review mainly consisted of observational studies rather than randomized clinical trials.
CONCLUSION: Implementing safety precautions, such as wearing protective gear, providing educational programs, and keeping a safe distance, demonstrated a significant decrease in radiation exposure. The experience of interventional pain management physicians also factored into their radiation exposure during procedures. Radiation is a known carcinogen, and more research is needed to better understand its risk to interventional pain management physicians.
KEY WORDS: Chronic pain management, radiation exposure, fluoroscopy, anesthesiology, nerve blocks, x-ray, ultrasound
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Ridvan Yildizhan, MD, Isa Cuce, MD, Enes Veziroglu, MD, and Mustafa Calis, MD
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Distal suprascapular nerve blocks (SSNB) can be performed at the level of the suprascapular notch (the preferred site) or at the level of the spinoglenoid notch.
OBJECTIVES: To compare the efficacy and safety of spinoglenoid versus suprascapular notch approaches for ultrasound (US)-guided distal SSNB in patients with chronic shoulder pain.
STUDY DESIGN: Prospective randomized controlled trial.
SETTING: Outpatient physical medicine and rehabilitation outpatient clinic of a tertiary center.
METHODS: Eighty patients with chronic unilateral shoulder pain were included in this study. Patients were randomized into 2 groups: group 1 (SSNB at the level of the spinoglenoid notch) and group 2 (SSNB at the level of the suprascapular notch). The patients were evaluated for pain according to the Shoulder Pain and Disability Index (SPADI) and a secondary visual analog scale (VAS), as well as for the outcome measures of range of motion (ROM) and pain pressure threshold (PPT) at baseline and at one, 4, and 12 weeks after the injection.
RESULTS: Statistically significant improvement was observed in the SPADI and VAS scores and ROM measurements, and the PPT measurements were similar at all post-injection follow-ups in both groups. Changes in outcome measures were similar between the groups, except for some ROM measurements at the post-injection follow-ups.
LIMITATIONS: Heterogeneity of shoulder pain etiologies.
CONCLUSION: Both distal SSNB approaches significantly improved pain and disability scores in patients with chronic shoulder pain, with no observable differences in the short-to-medium term. SSNB performed at the level of the spinoglenoid notch is therefore not inferior in efficacy and safety to SSNB performed at the level of the suprascapular notch.
KEY WORDS: Shoulder pain, suprascapular nerve block, spinoglenoid notch, suprascapular notch, ultrasound
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ASIPP is now in collaboration with Curi Medical Liability Program
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Since this malpractice insurance program officially launched in November 2018, ASIPP has signed up hundreds of providers with an average savings of 30%. This is professional liability insurance tailored to our specialty and will stand up for us and defend our practices.
Curi is a full-service advisory firm that serves physicians and their practices. Their valued advice is grounded in your priorities and elevated in your outcomes. They are driven by a deep understanding of your specific circumstances in medicine, business, and life. To read a few important points to keep in mind about the program, including discounts, administrative defense, cyber coverage, aggressive claims handling, and complimentary risk management CME activities, visit our website.
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Group Purchasing Organization Offer Better Pricing and Creates Added Value
ASIPP has formed a partnership with Henry Schein and PedsPal, a national GPO that has a successful history of negotiating better prices on medical supplies and creating value-added services for independent physicians. Working with MedAssets, PedsPal provides excellent pricing on products like contrast media that alleviate some of the financial pressures you experience today.
Learn More
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ASIPP, Fedora Billing,
and Revenue Cycle Management Partnership
ASIPP is now offering our members the benefit of a unique revenue cycle management/ billing service.
We have received a tremendous amount of interest in the ASIPP® billing and coding program.
Click here to learn more about the negotiated rate for practices and more!
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up-to-date news related to you, your practice, and your patients!
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