Non-pain trained physicians in a pain mgmt practice setting.

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TeslaCoil

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I joined this practice a year ago and as part of the model there are two non-pain physicians- one family medicine trained and one emergency medicine trained. The sole purpose of these physicians is essentially to see new patients and sign opiate orders. They are each getting paid ~350k/yr. There are only two actual pain trained physicians, including myself and one more. Now.. I have nothing against them personally, but this model sounds pretty inefficient. We also have 4 part time and two full time APPs. Has anybody else seen or been a part of this type of model? What are your thoughts? My partner is constantly complaining about staffing overhead...

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You’re paying them to shoulder 100% of the opioid liability and they are agreeing to it….don’t know if you could find someone willing to do that for less tbh
 
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You’re paying them to shoulder 100% of the opioid liability and they are agreeing to it….don’t know if you could find someone willing to do that for less tbh
They arent though. I write opiates too. and on weeks and days when they are off my partner writes them as well. Im not sure opiate liability is the main thought here. My partner hired then so that he could focus entirely on procedures, and he still wanted physicians seeing and assessing new patients and follow-ups... but of course its a lot of overhead. So im wondering if it would be better to just replace both of them with one pain physician who can also do procedures...
 
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the problem is that you and your partner would not be able to get the volume from procedures ordered by the other doctors.

their current role is to funnel procedures to increase your (and your partner's) procedural volume.

hire another pain doc, but dont expect you get any benefit from the patients he takes over.
 
I joined this practice a year ago and as part of the model there are two physicians- one family medicine trained and one emergency medicine trained. The sole purpose of these physicians is essentially to see patients and sign opiate orders. They are each getting paid ~350k/yr. There only two actual pain trained physicians, including myself and one more. Now.. I have nothing against them personally, but this model sounds pretty inefficient. We also have 4 part time and two full time APPs. Has anybody else seen or ben a part of this type of model? What are your thoughts? My partner is constantly complaining about staffing overhead...
Funny, the typical pay for pill mill docs for hire by non physician owners is $350k
 
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Steve, I dont run a pill mill. If you want to come inspect my clinic please come by anytime... I'm not far from you... couple hour drive. We have very reasonable limits.
 
Couldn't force me to just do clinic management for 350k. Twice that pay and no more than 15 pts per day.
 
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Steve, I dont run a pill mill. If you want to come inspect my clinic please come by anytime... I'm not far from you... couple hour drive. We have very reasonable limits.
In that case unlike Mitch I would be happy to see patients and order procedures for $350k and help wean them off narcotics.
 
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I joined this practice a year ago and as part of the model there are two non-pain physicians- one family medicine trained and one emergency medicine trained. The sole purpose of these physicians is essentially to see new patients and sign opiate orders. They are each getting paid ~350k/yr. There are only two actual pain trained physicians, including myself and one more. Now.. I have nothing against them personally, but this model sounds pretty inefficient. We also have 4 part time and two full time APPs. Has anybody else seen or been a part of this type of model? What are your thoughts? My partner is constantly complaining about staffing overhead...

Ideally, they would bring some other knowledge or skill to the practice. We have an occ med physician who does med management and workers comp.
 
Couldn't force me to just do clinic management for 350k. Twice that pay and no more than 15 pts per day.
Based on wRVU that wouldnt justify the pay though in my rough estimate… no?
 
You are paying them to generate procedures for you.

You could get NP/PAs instead, pay them 1/3 and actually make money.
 
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