Five Ways To Better Pain Management

 

The American Pain Foundation recently found that 17% of adults with chronic pain have difficulty reaching their primary doctors for help. According to the same study, 43% of chronic pain patients left their doctors' offices with unanswered queries about their treatment.

A recent study also found that 44% of Americans are undertreated for pain. These two studies show that Office based anesthesia patients have difficulty getting the care they require, secondly, they may not be able to get all their questions answered and third, when they do get treated, the pain is often being undertreated.

These are five ways to provide better pain management for patients.

1. Primary care doctors are still the best for pain management. More than 60% of all pain management cases are handled by them or other practitioners, such as nurse practitioners. There is simply not enough specialist pain management doctors to treat every case. When it comes to complex pain management, there is often a gap in the education of primary care physicians. It can lead to frustration and even worse, patients may not feel better or have tolerance issues that require higher doses. This can lead to incorrect dosing, and even fear of licensing problems from medical boards or regulatory agencies. Due to the growing problem of pain medication in this country, primary doctors are sometimes reluctant to prescribe scheduled narcotics. This is despite their best intentions.

2.Reducing stigma surrounding pain management patients - there are primary care doctors who refuse to treat pain management patients because they consider them too needy. The doctor may also be taking on increased risks by prescribing controlled drugs. According to the American Pain Foundation, 14% of people suffering from chronic pain avoid talking to their doctors because they don't want to be called a drug seeker. The current paradigm for pain management is often retroactive. Patients are brought in to be treated for pain. While this is acceptable, a more wellness-oriented approach would be better to keep the pain at a set level so that it does not escalate.

3. Patients need to communicate better with each other. Chronic pain is often volatile. This means that patients may experience extreme pain for a few days, then they may feel better for a while and then it may return again with more intensity a week later. Many tools are being developed to facilitate communication between patients, their providers, and help them communicate with each other. One such tool is a notebook that will record the patient's pain history. This will allow patients to visit the doctor more often than simply keeping a mental record of what they remember.

4. Answering patients' questions-Another issue in the survey was that patients still had questions about medication side effects. Patients were able to follow up by calling their doctor to inquire about side effects, treatment durations, and cost issues. Most practices have messaging services that allow them to contact an on-call doctor. This means that doctors' offices need to realize that patients may have questions that are not answered or have new questions after their appointment. They should also have the resources to answer these calls.

5. It is common for pain sufferers to experience acute pain exacerbations from time-to-time. If you have ever dealt with patients who are prescribed narcotics, you know that emergencies can occur at the worst times. The usual response is to inform the patient that they need to be admitted to an emergency room to receive immediate care. It is a better idea to prepare an emergency plan that will provide treatment for acute pain.