am i paranoid

[waldowaldo]

hey all,

i have an interest in either critical care or pain management. recently however i have been reading that many pain docs have been put in jail and charged with murder/manslaugher because of patients that OD on the drugs they were prescribed. is this a legitimate concern or are these just isolated cases? i don't want to go to jail!

on another note, i've heard many people on the forum say that pain is very lucrative...where does most of the revenue come from..is it because of the various procedures they perform?

i thank you for your comments...except the mean ones

waldo

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[UTSouthwestern]

Pain is certainly a lucrative field and as with all fields, has its good and bad apples. The majority I would bet are good people and not the licensed drug dealers that have made headlines recently.

Do your job correctly, cover yourself with prescription agreements/medication agreements with your patients, and be attentive to the signs of addiction/manipulation and you will be fine.

The pain guys in Dallas rake in the cash on the procedures. Some do as many as twenty per day. A couple have their own clinic/surgery center and collect fees off the administrative side as well. I have seen some make more than a million a year and most in the 500-600K range. It all depends on how much you want to work and how aggressive you are in developing your referral base. You need to get in tight with the IM and neurosurgery guys to develop that base.

Some guys are pill pushers and see 40 patients a day in clinic, writing prescriptions left and right.