ARTICLE SUMMARY:
The interventional pain specialist’s practice is expanding, driven by new training programs, technological advances, growing clinical evidence, and the benefits of a minimally invasive approach. With treatments expanding and the space between interventionalists and surgeons shrinking, opportunities are present for both physicians and OEMs. By Masha Dumanis and David Dopfel, PhD, Health Advances.
Back pain patients have for many decades followed a common referral flow, starting at the primary care provider (PCP) and ending at the spine surgeon, with just a stint of care provided by the pain management specialist. That is partly because until recently, the armamentarium of the pain management doctor, commonly an anesthesiologist, has been limited to a script for physical therapy (PT), epidural injections, and/ or spinal cord stimulation when surgery is contraindicated.
Throughout the last decade, however, new interventional devices and techniques have emerged, allowing pain management specialists, and specifically, an emerging specialty called interventional pain management, to treat back pain patients more effectively and for longer durations. Even with the advent of minimally invasive implants for pain management, the interventional pain physician and the spine surgeon have largely found room to coexist and treat mutually exclusive groups of patients. Surgeons are trained to operate and are reimbursed significantly more for surgeries than they are for interventional procedures (see Figure 1). This has discouraged surgeons from adopting non-surgical, interventional techniques.
