ANESTHESIA ALERT
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O U T P AT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4
Prioritize top pain areas.
Many of your patients may present with
multiple complaints of pain. They may have back, hip and
knee pain. Typically you can't address everything in one session, and
in most cases, insurers won't cover multiple injections in one day, so
it's imperative from a time and financial perspective to prioritize the
areas of pain you'll treat. Have your patients identify the top few
areas they'd like you to focus on and tackle those areas first.
Sometimes treating pain in one area will help reduce pain in other
areas because they are interrelated. For example, treating knee pain
can help with back pain, and treating foot pain or an abnormal gait
can improve knee, hip and back pain.
Schedule patients with the same provider.
Whenever possible, make
sure patients are seen by their primary provider at the practice.
Patients tend to find comfort in seeing and speaking to the same people,
which can only help with their satisfaction and outcomes. As providers,
the more we get to know patients, the better we can learn and under-
stand their specific character traits and needs, recognize emerging issues
and be in a better position to determine the best course of treatment.
Hold team discussions.
Pain management is a field where collabo-
ration is valuable. We hold many team discussions to review
our patients and their treatment progress (or lack thereof). These dis-
cussions provide an opportunity to bounce ideas off one another and
see if anyone has a fresh perspective on what to do for a particular
patient. Sometimes we'll also collaborate with a patient's physical
therapist or pain psychologist and ask how the patient is doing dur-
ing therapy, whether the patient is keeping appointments and seems
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