Q: I see many patients who were in car accidents. More than a few are involved in lawsuits over their injuries. I recently reluctantly told a patient with a large unpaid balance that I would have to stop seeing her and put her...
Read MoreAccording to prosecutors, in 2018, George Blatti set up a makeshift office in an old Radio Shack store and later prescribed pain medications from his car in parking lots without examinations to many who appeared to be...
Read MoreIf a patient is also a friend, you can give them a personal gift, but if you are considering general gifting, then you need to bear two laws in mind: the Anti-Kickback Statute and the Civil Monetary Penalty (CMP) Law, which...
Read MoreDuring 2015-2017, physician knowledge was associated with less frequent prescribing of opioids for back pain, according to a study pub- lished in JAMA Network Open. Investigators compared the correlation of clinical knowledge...
Read MoreWhen injured workers with low back pain (LBP) receive guideline-recommended interventions, they typically return to work sooner, according to a study published in PLOS ONE. Researchers quantified the influence of adherence to...
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The opioid epidemic continues to be a serious public health problem in the United States, with...
Read MoreIn Silicon Valley, the concept of friction is the idea that you must remove every bit of inconvenience or work that gets in the way of a digital interaction. It’s about making things as easy as possible to get done. I’ve been...
Read MorePrevious studies indicate that chronic pain, including fibromyalgia (FM), negatively impacts quality of life (QoL) for the reportedly affected 3%-6% of the world population. “There is supportive evidence for the use of...
Read MoreAs part of a multimodal analgesic regimen in patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty, duloxetine cuts opioid use compared with placebo, according to a study presented at the annual Regional Anesthesiology and Acute Pain...
Read MoreAs a means of providing long-term relief from chronic pain, flotation tanks simply don’t hold water, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open. To test the true potential of flotation restricted environmental...
Read MoreAbout 20% of United States adults experience chronic pain, according to a study published in PAIN. Investigators used data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) to examine the prevalence of chronic pain and its...
Read MorePercutaneous peripheral nerve stimulation reduces acute pain and opioid requirements in the week following orthopedic surgery, according to a pilot study published in Anesthesiology. Researchers assessed the feasibility and...
Read MoreFor patients with acute posttraumatic headache presenting to the emergency department, intravenous metoclopramide + diphenhydramine (M+D) is more efficacious than placebo, according to a study published in Neurology....
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Postoperative pain has been shown in prior research to be a major challenge for patients with...
Read MoreA s a palliative care doctor in NYC during the beginning of the pandemic, my typical greeting response of “I’m fine” was speedily replaced with “I’m hanging in there.” It seemed slightly less false (because who’s really “fine”...
Read MoreA patient-centered opioid discharge prescription guideline satisfies most patients undergoing surgery, according to a research letter published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Investigators prospectively...
Read MoreAccording to recent data, nearly 50% of adolescents who misuse prescription opioids report obtaining the drugs from relatives or friends. Understanding the parental origins of adolescent prescription opioid medical use and...
Read MoreAccess to primary care is limited for patients taking opioids for chronic pain, particularly for patients with histories suggestive of aberrant use of opioids, according to a study published in Pain. Investigators conducted a...
Read MoreA text message system can monitor postoperative opioid use and shows that many prescribed opioid tablets are unused, according to a case study published in NEJM Catalyst. Researchers built, deployed, and tested an automated text...
Read MoreCancer survivors report higher rates of prescription opioid use than those without the disease, but this may not translate to increased opioid misuse. Caution against opioid misuse is warranted but should not come at the expense...
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