Venue Update: AACCA Welcomes its Membership to Fabulous Las Vegas for 1st Annual Conference in 2004

In response to member requests, the AACCA has relocated next year's conference to sunny and lively Las Vegas. The AACCA is excited about their new location for its first annual conference in April.

Complete conference schedules and registration purchases are now available online.  Make your reservation today!

In the Works!

In conjunction with the AACCA annual conference, you will receive 1 show ticket with each registration to the event of your choice during the week of the conference. This is a FREE ticket included in your conference registration and is a savings valued at over $100!

Events choices being negotiated and discussed include:

	Celine Dion
	Blue Man Group
	Cirque du Soleil

In addition, you will also be able to purchase additional tickets at a reduced rate.  Please contact us if you will need extra tickets or would like to provide feedback on current and/or additional event choices.

WTO Allows Poor Nations to Import Cheap Drugs

On Saturday, the World Trade Organization finalized a deal to allow poor countries to import generic forms of patented drugs for deadly diseases such as AIDS, Malaria and tuberculosis.

For eight months, the US had been trying to block Saturday's finalized negotiations, claiming that drug companies faced the possibility of losing control of drug patent rights.

However, groups supporting the rights of individuals in poor countries for better access to lifesaving drugs are criticizing the WTO deal.  These groups claim that the negotiated deal, and new global patent rules, will only serve to continue driving up the price of medicines.

Click here to learn more specifics about this important issue

Stem Cells Used to Repair Heart Tissue

Doctors now believe that patients with diseased hearts will soon be able to receive effective treatment without needing heart transplants.

Recently, four out of five Brazilian heart-failure patients no longer needed heart transplants after being treated from their own stem cells that were extracted from each patient's bone marrow.  The extracted stem cells were then pumped into the heart's left ventricle.

Click here to read more about this new fascinating discovery.

HHS Provides $1.4 Billion More to States and Hospitals for Terrorism Preparedness

Health and Human Services has made another $1.4 billion available to states and three metropolitan areas to help strengthen their capacity to respond to terrorism and other public health emergencies.

The funds will be used to upgrade infectious disease surveillance and investigation, enhance the readiness of hospitals and the health care system to deal with large numbers of casualties, expand public health laboratory and communications capacities and improve connectivity between hospitals, and city, local and state health departments to enhance disease reporting. 

Doctor Claims Coughing Holds Off Certain Types of Heart Attacks

A Doctor in Austria now claims that coughing vigorously until an ambulance arrives could save the lives of many people having a specific type of heart attack brought on by a rapid and irregular heart beat.

The technique, called cough CPR, forces blood to the brain while the heart is beginning to fail and keeps patients conscious long enough to call for help.

Read more about this interesting concept on the USA Today and MSNBC websites.

CMS Posts Correct Coding Initiative Edits on Internet 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has made it easier for physicians and other providers to bill properly and be paid promptly for their services to people with Medicare coverage. CMS has posted on its Website the automated edits used to identify questionable claims and adjust payments to reflect what would have been paid if the claim had been filed correctly. The edits, known as the National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI), identify pairs of services that normally should not be billed by the same physician for the same patient on the same day. 

The NCCI includes two types of edits. One set– the comprehensive/component edits - identifies code pairs that should not be billed together because one service inherently includes the other. The other – the mutually exclusive edits – identifies code pairs that, for clinical reasons, are unlikely to be performed on the same patient on the same day. For example, a mutually exclusive edit might identify two different types of testing that yield equivalent results.

Click here to learn more about these coding edits.

Progress Shown in Death Rates from Four Leading Cancers

The Office foe Disease Control and Prevention has just released a new report outlining updated data on current death rates from the four most common cancers -
lung, breast, prostate and colorectal.  The report states that death rates began declining in all four cancers in the late 1990s, while newly diagnosed cases began to stabilize in 1995.

Read the CDC's latest information on this issue to learn specifics on:

	reduction rates in each type of cancer
	recommendations for continued reductions
	research discoveries and opportunities

Improved Anthrax Vaccine Being Tested

Preliminary tests have begun on a new anthrax vaccine designed to battle both the bacteria itself and the toxin it produces.  Click here to learn more about this new advanced vaccine.

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