The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Makes a Major Move to Improve Pain Care
This past November, CMS announced that starting January 1, 2023, Medicare will pay physicians in all states and other practitioners with prescription authority such as Nurse Practitioners (NP’s) and Physician Assistants (PA’s) in some states, to perform comprehensive pain management for their patients living with chronic pain. Medicare health insurance covers individuals over the age of 65 and disabled Americans.
CMS has created two specialized billing codes just for chronic pain management (CPM codes G3002 and G3003) that these health care practitioners can use to get paid for their time spent caring for patients and coordinating patient care with other health care practitioners like physical therapists, psychologists and even complementary practitioners such as massage therapists and acupuncturists.
Did CMS include patient input in the ruling?
Yes! CMS released a draft version of this idea in July 2022 and posed many questions asking for patient and other stakeholder input. The U.S. Pain Foundation sent an alert this summer explaining the kinds of input they were seeking. Thank you to those who took action! U.S. Pain Foundation submitted a lengthy comment to the docket answering CMS’s questions from the patient perspective. You can read our comment here. We are pleased that CMS really did incorporate our recommendations into the final rule. In fact, they quoted the organization’s comment 12 times in the final rule.
How will this improve pain care?
How will I know if my doctor is using this code?
Do the new codes allow telehealth visits with my doctor?
What about if I have already been seeing a doctor for pain management and have an on-going treatment plan?
Will any doctor regardless of specialty be able to bill these new CPM (chronic pain management) codes?
Will other public and private insurers cover monthly chronic pain management visits?
Should I mention this to my doctor?
Filed under: General Problems
No the problem is the drs have have the balls to stand up for patients pain rights,, if it was their son or daughter in severe pain,, or have ever had pain themselves and knew what severe pain felt like,,, then they would change their tune,, what ever happen to the oath the drs took,, to keep the patient as comfortable as possible,, that oath went out when social media started,, that’s the problem,, forget about social media,, that has caused problems in everyone’s life,, talk about addiction,, that is the worst one,, smart phones,, throw them all away,, all they do is cause problems,, drs need to ,,, do what they went to school for,, PAIN MANAGEMENT,, please you don’t go to collage to tell your patient to take Tylenol,, when that is 50 times worse for you then OPIODS,, speak up,, grow a set of balls,, stand up for your patients,, the drs do not care how much pain your in, or they would speak up,, but the last 200 years there was NO PROBLEM,, come on,,, why does everyone make such a big deal about it,, No one can do their job correctly,, what will happen if you write a prescription for what the patient needs,, isn’t that what the patient needs,,I’m tired of begging for what I need to walk,, I know you have legs and you can walk,but I’m tired of not being able to leave my house,,, and live the rest of my life in a cubicle, it is not fair to me or my family or my precious pugs,,it’s sad to no longer be able to do things I used to do,, I’m under 60,, please just continue to give me,, what it takes for me to walk or hang your license on the coat rack and exit the office,, you are ruining not just my life but many more,,if u cared,, you would put up a fight for your patients that actually need you,, please or we may as well kill our selves,, we are just wasting space in this world,, yes it’s Christmas and this is what I’m doing because my muscle spasms kicked me out of bed,
To bad the doctors are afraid to prescribe anything that works on people with cyp2d6 variants.
we shall see. my jan 2023 visit is telehealth so i will def ask if he wants this. im not scared & i kinda like this np i see so i wana play fair.
This js goid news as we need Doctors to be able to make enough money off of us to make us worthwhile as patients for them, but if they aren’t allowed to dispense the proper medication or medicare/insurance wont pay for it, then it still isnt helping millions of us.