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Pain Management

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AAPM&R aims to ensure physiatrists are recognized as the preferred providers for pain management. In addition to the PM&R BOLD plan for pain management and spine rehabilitation care, your Academy established a Pain Management and Opioid Task Force and is actively participating on various external coalitions dedicated to helping people manage acute and chronic disabling pain conditions. The AAPM&R Pain Management and Opioid Task Force is continuously providing a comprehensive response to issues related to the physiatrist’s role in pain management, including opioid prescribing and providing interventional pain procedures. The Academy is also actively monitoring state legislation concerning opioid prescribing and pain management.

Treating the Opioid Crisis

    The Academy is an active partner in helping the AMA end the epidemic through participation on the Substance Use and Pain Care Task Force, and the Cannabis Task Force. Learn more about how AAPM&R, along with the Task Forces, is addressing America’s opioid crisis:

    AAPM&R also offers extensive, complimentary physician education on proper opioid prescribing. Learn more about the Update in Opioid Management SAE-P. 

    ACGME's Program Requirements for Pain Medicine

    Your Academy, in collaboration with the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (ABPMR) and the Association of Academic Physiatrists (AAP), reviewed and submitted comments on the current Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s (ACGME) Program Requirements for Pain Medicine. As physiatrists, we have the distinctive ability to bring together and lead an interdisciplinary care team focused on managing patients’ pain and optimizing function.

    Your Academy has advocated for changes to be made to 9 specific training requirements, with 7 of them being updated based on our recommendations. While this is positive, the Academy will continue work with the ACGME to ensure the training requirements are reflective of best practices and creating an environment of ideal training.

    Read the entire comment letter here.

    Helping Craft the National Pain Management Strategy

    As a member of the Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee (IPRCC), Dr. Steven P. Stanos, Jr., DO, was instrumental in helping draft the National Pain Management Strategy (NPS). Read the full article in the September 2015 issue of The Physiatrist on page 6.

    Participating in the Multi-society Pain Workgroup (MPW) 

    AAPM&R participates in a multi-specialty pain workgroup (MPW) involving 14 national specialty societies representing well over 100,000 physicians. MPW was created by a small group of Contractor Medical Directors who were reviewing services and LCDs ranging from Spinal Cord Stimulation to Epidural Steroid Injections and were in search of the best evidence supporting a given treatment for the Medicare population to assist in the definition of “best practices."

    AAPM&R Comments on Pain Management, Interventional Pain Procedures, Opioids, and Opioid Use Disorder

    Resources for Therapeutic Cannabis

    While the Academy does not have a formal position statement on therapeutic cannabis patient certification, at the request of membership, the following were identified as educational resources: