Pain fellowship still worth it in 2025?

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Meyer-Overton

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CA-2 anesthesia resident here. I like anesthesia, but I think I enjoy pain more—mainly for the procedures, the diagnostic work, and feeling like an actual doctor again with ongoing patient relationships.

That said, I keep hearing from people that the pay for pain “isn’t what it used to be,” while the anesthesia market is currently very strong.
For those who’ve finished fellowship recently or are in the job market now:

How do starting salaries for pain compare to general anesthesia right now?
What does the job market look like for pain in 2025? Are there plenty of good jobs, or is it tight?
What do salaries typically look like 5+ years into practice?
How does the lifestyle really compare to OR anesthesia?

I’m not looking for old data from a decade ago — I just want a current, realistic picture so I know what I’m walking into before committing another year of training.

If you had to choose between starting a pain career in 2025 vs. jumping straight into the current anesthesia market… what would you do?
 
I make more than any of my anesthesia coresidents right now, even the ones in rural areas taking call.

-Starting salary will be lower, probably in the 300-350k range. No call/weekends.
-Job market will always be tight, so be well-trained, a good interviewer, make a ton of connections, and be flexible with your landing spot. My recommendation is never join a private practice with more than 1 existing doctor unless there is an ironclad way to become partner/(close to equal) owner. HOPD is probably the best option to make big bucks early on (and forever?).
-2 years in, easy to be hitting 500k (4 days a week) and not too hard to hit 750k if you hustle a bit.
-Lifestyle blows anesthesia out of the water. Hospital administration actually values your opinion. You get to be the "boss" and run your clinic.
 
Meyer-Overton said:
CA-2 anesthesia resident here. I like anesthesia, but I think I enjoy pain more—mainly for the procedures, the diagnostic work, and feeling like an actual doctor again with ongoing patient relationships.

That said, I keep hearing from people that the pay for pain “isn’t what it used to be,” while the anesthesia market is currently very strong.
For those who’ve finished fellowship recently or are in the job market now:

How do starting salaries for pain compare to general anesthesia right now?
What does the job market look like for pain in 2025? Are there plenty of good jobs, or is it tight?
What do salaries typically look like 5+ years into practice?
How does the lifestyle really compare to OR anesthesia?

I’m not looking for old data from a decade ago — I just want a current, realistic picture so I know what I’m walking into before committing another year of training.

If you had to choose between starting a pain career in 2025 vs. jumping straight into the current anesthesia market… what would you do?
Click to expand...

SgtThunderfistMD said:
I make more than any of my anesthesia coresidents right now, even the ones in rural areas taking call.

-Starting salary will be lower, probably in the 300-350k range. No call/weekends.
-Job market will always be tight, so be well-trained, a good interviewer, make a ton of connections, and be flexible with your landing spot. My recommendation is never join a private practice with more than 1 existing doctor unless there is an ironclad way to become partner/(close to equal) owner. HOPD is probably the best option to make big bucks early on (and forever?).
-2 years in, easy to be hitting 500k (4 days a week) and not too hard to hit 750k if you hustle a bit.
-Lifestyle blows anesthesia out of the water. Hospital administration actually values your opinion. You get to be the "boss" and run your clinic.
Click to expand...

Did anesthesia private practice for a year - made about 50-60k/month working 55-60 hours/week.
Did locums anesthesia - made about 100k/month working 50 hours/week with some call.

1st year in pain (current) - 450K base. Probably wont collect much more than that. seeing about 25 pp/day 5xweek.
2nd year - projecting around 600k based on current ramp trends and number of procedures.

I will concur that HOPD is the best option starting out and maybe if you want to coast a lifestyle career choice (I am looking to do this later in my career). However, HOPD often doesn't offer ASC shares or equity, so your only way to earn income is keep on the wRVU hamster wheel. With private practice, you can build/buy your ASC, grow your brand, have pretty good autonomy, and eventually sell the entity and cash out.
 
there seem to be a lot of questions on the financial status of pain vs anesthesia.

if this is the case, then i would hesitate to suggest a pain fellowship.

its a year of fellowship salary, and long term anesthesia is probably better than pain financially.


most of us in pain suspect more cutbacks and limitations to interventional pain practice.
 
I wouldn't base the decision primarily on finances. The problems we deal with in pain will always be there, whether the government wants to pay for it or not. I do cash pay work all the time for things insurance doesn't cover. If you're okay with the anesthesia lifestyle and 'role', it's probably a better deal financially. Pain is a totally different career. You'll do well with it if you're curious about patients and pain disorders, and have a nurturing style. If you have the patience to work on long-term projects, endure setbacks, and enjoy the rewards of seeing your efforts fluorish, pain is a great field. The learning in this field is lifelong, not just in terms of the medicine, but also the human relationships. You'll do better when you start to recognize the patient's relationship with you is at least as important than your technical skills.
 
A little background:
- Just finished in July 2025
- Straight through journey so far (residency --> fellowship)
- Restricted to a very specific area/city geographically
- Very competitive pain market

How do starting salaries for pain compare to general anesthesia right now?
For the area that I'm in, W2 anesthesia employed positions pay about $500k with stipends for cardiac and pediatric fellowships (about 75k). The anesthesia jobs down here do not negotiate at all. It's a take it or leave it kinda option. Vacation is about 10-12 weeks with a decent sign on bonus usually. Anesthesia jobs are primarily medical direction of 3-4 rooms.

Despite looking for a pain job in the specific region/city I needed to be in for over a year, I only got one pain interview in the area which led to the opportunity to possibly do prn work with the sole physician practice in the future (no talk of rates for that so who knows how this will pan out). I interviewed at 5 other pain practices all about 2 hours away from this region which offered about $450k for HOPD with wRVU at $60-65. The private practices were lower with base salaries at $275-350k usually promising very low collection rates (20-30%) after earning your base salary. The clincher for me with the private jobs was that none of them had a partnership track or ASC ownership opprotunities. Another trend that didn't sit well for me was all the private places I interviewed had no health insurance/crappy health insurance, poor options for retirement investing, and told me I couldn't take more than 3 weeks off in the year. I guess I kind of want more stable benefits in that regard. Private places laughed me off when I would ask to negiotiate things like non-competes, sign on bonus, and pay; again, very resistant to negiotiate in this region.

I would have been fine with the HOPD jobs but they were just too far away for my personal situation. The other problem I had was that PE owns a lot of anesthesia and pain in the area and I had no interest in working for PE for my first job.

What does the job market look like for pain in 2025? Are there plenty of good jobs, or is it tight?
This honestly depends on where you want to practice. In a very competitive HCOL/desirable city, you'll be lucky to get an interview and chances are if they are interviewing a fresh grad, it is probably because they can't fill the position with someone more experienced. If you want to go to a small town or low population area, you can find a job that will pay you well and treat you nice. I get people reaching out to me about small towns in the same state as me promising $500k for 2 years base salary plus wRVUs which I would gladly take if circumstances were different. The best jobs people in my fellowship class signed for were all in undesirable, low population areas (general trend of medicine jobs though).

I would figure out where you want to practice then call the local hospitals and ask if they would be hiring a pain doc about the time you are graduating fellowship. They might even get you signed and offer a stipend before/early fellowship. I wish I did that to get a better pulse of the practice environment here during residency. Another clincher for my region was that there are only two hospitals that hire pain doctors directly since there are so many private practices and PE pain docs and both hospitals are swamped with pain docs looking for jobs so usually hire internally from their pool of anesthesia docs.

What do salaries typically look like 5+ years into practice?
Obviously, I have not had an attending job for 5+ years, but from whom I've spoken to in my region, it seems that the W2 employed anesthesiologists hang around $550-$650k without moonlighting (call taking positions), W2 pain docs around $600-800k, and private practice I imagine is greater than $600k plus all the tax benefits of owning a business.

How does the lifestyle really compare to OR anesthesia?
Fellowship lifestlye was eons better than residency lifestyle. I imagine an attending life with predictable hours, calling the shots, deciding you want to cancel/see more patients a certain day, having people ask what you want in the OR for your cases, and choosing which patients to see and how to treat them is better than a call taking anesthesiologist life. But I think this is a personal choice. Some people take a pay cut and don't do call where I'm heading for anesthesia. Other people enjoy the call since they have the day off and can just show up in the evening as needed. I think this is more a personal preference.

If you had to choose between starting a pain career in 2025 vs. jumping straight into the current anesthesia market… what would you do?
I would still choose to start a pain career in 2025 in general since I enjoy the flow of office, doing procedures, and long term care of patients. However at this present moment, if I knew the pain practice environment was this bad in the city that I'm in currently, I likely would have done a cardiac fellowship since it would have been so much easier getting a job here and being able to just move here and stay without the financial consequences of a year of fellowship. There is a lot of uncertainity in whether or not I'll actually be able to practice pain and/or leave the region. I'm already plotting an escape plan and keeping my ears peeled for pain job openings in the area which kinda sucks to be honest after just moving to a brand new area with no roots and a job you're only half excited about. Thus, I encourage you to think long and hard about where you are going to practice when you finish fellowship and see if there are hospitals hiring pain docs in that region. As others have emphasized above, better bang for your buck starting out at a HOPD.
 
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Status Sciaticus said:
Did anesthesia private practice for a year - made about 50-60k/month working 55-60 hours/week.
Did locums anesthesia - made about 100k/month working 50 hours/week with some call.

1st year in pain (current) - 450K base. Probably wont collect much more than that. seeing about 25 pp/day 5xweek.
2nd year - projecting around 600k based on current ramp trends and number of procedures.

I will concur that HOPD is the best option starting out and maybe if you want to coast a lifestyle career choice (I am looking to do this later in my career). However, HOPD often doesn't offer ASC shares or equity, so your only way to earn income is keep on the wRVU hamster wheel. With private practice, you can build/buy your ASC, grow your brand, have pretty good autonomy, and eventually sell the entity and cash out.
Click to expand...
Just curious, what made you want to take the pay cut from locums anesthesia and do pain?
 
It is very hard figuring out how to transition from a single doc/owner to multiple docs/owners. Please be understanding when interviewing for private practice. We aren’t ever going to have large benefit packages for employees. It isn’t feasible in an office with 10 employees. We also can’t promise a portion of the business until we see an associate that wants to help and is capable of running the business. We don’t want to give up half the business we built and still be running the business on our own.
 
BobBarker said:
It is very hard figuring out how to transition from a single doc/owner to multiple docs/owners. Please be understanding when interviewing for private practice. We aren’t ever going to have large benefit packages for employees. It isn’t feasible in an office with 10 employees. We also can’t promise a portion of the business until we see an associate that wants to help and is capable of running the business. We don’t want to give up half the business we built and still be running the business on our own.
Click to expand...
Then why should they join your practice?

What’s to prevent you from making a bunch of empty promises that never come to fruition?
 
I don’t think any of the solo docs in my area actually want a partner, they want an employee they can skim off the profits and dump the worst patients on. And you can never earn partnership in their eyes because you don’t know the trauma of pushing your C-arm 10 miles up the hill to work in the snow or something.
 
Meyer-Overton said:
CA-2 anesthesia resident here. I like anesthesia, but I think I enjoy pain more—mainly for the procedures, the diagnostic work, and feeling like an actual doctor again with ongoing patient relationships.

That said, I keep hearing from people that the pay for pain “isn’t what it used to be,” while the anesthesia market is currently very strong.
For those who’ve finished fellowship recently or are in the job market now:

How do starting salaries for pain compare to general anesthesia right now?
What does the job market look like for pain in 2025? Are there plenty of good jobs, or is it tight?
What do salaries typically look like 5+ years into practice?
How does the lifestyle really compare to OR anesthesia?

I’m not looking for old data from a decade ago — I just want a current, realistic picture so I know what I’m walking into before committing another year of training.

If you had to choose between starting a pain career in 2025 vs. jumping straight into the current anesthesia market… what would you do?
Click to expand...
Once you've been at it for 5+ years, the pay won't make a difference. Just do what you love. Do what makes you feel energized at the end of every day (or the least drained). If you make a decision that goes against this basic principle of career selection because of a little extra cash (there are will always be pain jobs that pay more, and there will always be anesthesia gigs that pay more), it's a recipe for unhappiness and dissatisfaction. You're young, poor, and lacking in experience, so you think the money makes a difference. In due time, it won't. No matter which field you go into, you can be very wealthy if you aren't picky about the practice, and are willing to work reasonably hard. So just make the right decision based on your calling, not the cash. Figure out the money stuff later.
 
FatKid said:
Then why should they join your practice?

What’s to prevent you from making a bunch of empty promises that never come to fruition?
Click to expand...
It’s a leap of faith both ways. I would make sure there is a reasonable two year guarantee to get to know the practice, the other doc, and the area.
 
Also, don’t get hung up on benefits packages. You want to be 1099 and have your own s corp so you can make your own benefit package.
 
I’ve been working for 15+years. I live in New Jersey. Have worked for 2 private orthopedic groups. Got sick of the bs and have recently transitioned to hopd employment. It’s only been a month. Here’s what I will say..the absolute sick adherence to LCD in hopd will make any private practice doc wanna rip their hair out and bang their head against the wall. One of my colleagues who got sick of hopd has said “**** lcd” and I don’t disagree.

I get it..hopd wants low hanging fruit and pp doesn’t care bc they think planting their feet in the ground like those guys in the movie 300 will make them martyrs in the afterlife.

The reality is that it’s all ****. I guess I’ll suck wind for LCD compliance so massa gets paid and they pay my bloated salary..but it’s no picnic because I know I can help patients with quick injections and not having to play the insurance game…
 
Agast said:
I don’t think any of the solo docs in my area actually want a partner, they want an employee they can skim off the profits and dump the worst patients on. And you can never earn partnership in their eyes because you don’t know the trauma of pushing your C-arm 10 miles up the hill to work in the snow or something.
Click to expand...
100% correct.

Most of the solo docs want someone they can exploit and take advantage of.
 
SgtThunderfistMD said:
My recommendation is never join a private practice with more than 1 existing doctor unless there is an ironclad way to become partner/(close to equal) owner.
Click to expand...
This guy is right. The people I know in pain who are less happy are junior physicians in a long established private group where they can never be a senior partner. You want to take pride and work hard in your chosen specialty.
But you also want autonomy and to directly profit from your own hard work. Tiered partnerships are lame. If you are new to a group and you think you’re being dumped on, you probably are.

In private practice, you want to develop a good relationship with the people who are making decisions about your schedule and compensation. If you are layers away those people, you may be left out of the cold in terms of income and job satisfaction.

You will make more money away from the city. I actually live in a city of 500k and commute 45-50min to a much more small town location. Full partner in an ortho group of 6-7 docs. I love my job, make very good money for 4 days/week, the ortho guys respect me.

It also depends on your mindset. My comparison is anesthesia. I only did anesthesia residency. But if you want to make good money in anesthesia, you have to take real call and weekend coverage. Thinking that you’ll go home soon only to have cases added on, being woken up in the middle of the night by a pager SUCKS.

Pain schedule is generally 8a-5p or some variation, 4-5 days a week. Call is minimal. I’m always home to put my kids to bed.
You must be able to deal with whiny personalities. That really grates on some docs, but after a few years most of us respond to these people on autopilot. I would do it again in a heartbeat.
 
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Many small pp pain groups I’m familiar with seem to prefer mid levels to new mds.

If You can make it rain any doc will make you an equal partner. Of course if you have that skillset just go out on your own.
 
nvrsumr said:
Many small pp pain groups I’m familiar with seem to prefer mid levels to new mds.

If You can make it rain any doc will make you an equal partner. Of course if you have that skillset just go out on your own.
Click to expand...
How does one “make it rain”
 
Meyer-Overton said:
How does one “make it rain”
Click to expand...

As a solo practice owner I'd be looking for a guy who is naturally likeable, can build lasting relationships with both docs and patients, and sell the procedures that matter. Doesn't mean doing anything unethical, but some docs are better at getting folks to say yes to cash pay work.
 
You don’t have to do any cash pay procedures to be successful. I probably make less than $10,000 a year gross from cash pay procedures.
 
BobBarker said:
You don’t have to do any cash pay procedures to be successful. I probably make less than $10,000 a year gross from cash pay procedures.
Click to expand...

Ha ha... be fair and post your typical day template. It's insane. Simply getting adequate referrals to do all that would be a challenge for me.
 
I have 233 total patients next week. 11 are at a facility, the rest in office. Couple kyphos, couple trials, and a si joint in office.
 
truvida22 said:
Just curious, what made you want to take the pay cut from locums anesthesia and do pain?
Click to expand...
I never truly gave up locums or anesthesia.
During fellowship, i moonlit internally and doubled my pay. On PTO time and weekends, I did locums elsewhere.
I figured that I would diversify my skillset into either cardiac or pain, but pain was the best option out of the two that leveraged business and entrepreneurial interests.

Also, the high ceiling in pain medicine is pretty attractive.
Dr. Ice said:
I’ve been working for 15+years. I live in New Jersey. Have worked for 2 private orthopedic groups. Got sick of the bs and have recently transitioned to hopd employment. It’s only been a month. Here’s what I will say..the absolute sick adherence to LCD in hopd will make any private practice doc wanna rip their hair out and bang their head against the wall. One of my colleagues who got sick of hopd has said “**** lcd” and I don’t disagree.

I get it..hopd wants low hanging fruit and pp doesn’t care bc they think planting their feet in the ground like those guys in the movie 300 will make them martyrs in the afterlife.

The reality is that it’s all ****. I guess I’ll suck wind for LCD compliance so massa gets paid and they pay my bloated salary..but it’s no picnic because I know I can help patients with quick injections and not having to play the insurance game…
Click to expand...
Why such a strict adherence? If procedures are getting approved, why does the LCD matter?
 
Status Sciaticus said:
I never truly gave up locums or anesthesia.
During fellowship, i moonlit internally and doubled my pay. On PTO time and weekends, I did locums elsewhere.
I figured that I would diversify my skillset into either cardiac or pain, but pain was the best option out of the two that leveraged business and entrepreneurial interests.

Also, the high ceiling in pain medicine is pretty attractive.

Why such a strict adherence? If procedures are getting approved, why does the LCD matter?
Click to expand...
I’m assuming they are trying to avoid non payment from “no auth required” and “authorization is not a guarantee of payment”
 
my key to tolerating LCD is to remember that in every medical specialty we cant help everyone, but it sure helps when there is some other entity that you can cast blame upon.

there is the "blame the insurance company for not covering your procedure/has prerequisites on it".

there is no "well sorry you cant afford it" discussion.


and templates help too.
 
What I am seeing is the adherence to LCD is maddening to the point of being a total disservice to hard working individuals with genuine problems who can’t make it to PT twice a week for 4 weeks or can’t tolerate it. Our precert dept won’t even send it to auth without the LCD “being satisfied”

I guess if they want to pay me what they are paying me for ordering PT on everyone, it’s a very low risk job
 
I think there is a disconnect. An employer plan managed by bcbs (like UPS) doesn’t adhere to the Medicare lcd. So not every patient needs to follow the LCD. It sounds like they were probably destroyed in a RAC audit in the past and now are permanently gun-shy.
 
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Dr. Ice said:
What I am seeing is the adherence to LCD is maddening to the point of being a total disservice to hard working individuals with genuine problems who can’t make it to PT twice a week for 4 weeks or can’t tolerate it. Our precert dept won’t even send it to auth without the LCD “being satisfied”

I guess if they want to pay me what they are paying me for ordering PT on everyone, it’s a very low risk job
Click to expand...
Doesnt every patient participate in a 6 week home exercise program? or isn't the pain too much sometimes to participate in physical therapy?
Theres ways around these issues.

BobBarker said:
I think there is a disconnect. An employer plan managed by bcbs (like UPS) doesn’t adhere to the Medicare lcd. So not every patient needs to follow the LCD. It sounds like they were probably destroyed in a RAC audit in the past and now are permanently gun-shy.
Click to expand...
This is likely the reason. I'd ask for the LCDs for these plans.
 
Yes it’s annoying. But…. Review the LCD… Make a template or macro. Insert into notes prn. Done. It was a helpful exercise to familiarize myself with the criteria.

I recently did this for kyphoplasty, as I’ve been ramping up my volume. Wasn’t that hard, took about an hour. google the insurer (include carelon, evicore, etc) and CPT code, cut and paste the LCD into a word file, take a few minutes to edit it into a usable format, insert < key areas > to fill in the blanks and individualize to patients, upload to your emr. I include the title/# and date of the lcd version at the top of template in patient notes.
 
I practice both anesthesiology and pain since completing fellowship. The older I get, the more I realize there is a beauty to coming back from vacation and not dealing with a double booked schedule and 50+ patient messages. It is a real gift to leave work at work the second you hit the parking lot.
 
I still don’t really get why anesthesiologists go into pain…especially in this market. Many of my current colleagues are anesthesiologists and complain about patient care..and I sit there thinking to myself…bro…you can just put them to sleep…
1755900443191.png
 
Dawkter said:
I practice both anesthesiology and pain since completing fellowship. The older I get, the more I realize there is a beauty to coming back from vacation and not dealing with a double booked schedule and 50+ patient messages. It is a real gift to leave work at work the second you hit the parking lot.
Click to expand...
How are you making this work? HOPD, academics, PP?
 
Dr. Ice said:
I still don’t really get why anesthesiologists go into pain…especially in this market. Many of my current colleagues are anesthesiologists and complain about patient care..and I sit there thinking to myself…bro…you can just put them to sleep…View attachment 408238
Click to expand...
Autonomy is priceless. Those anesthesiologists complaining about 5 minutes of patient interaction are probably stressed about something else that they have no control over.
 
Pain obviously has many pros regarding autonomy, advancement of procedural skills, innovative technologies, long term patient contact etc. With that said, there is an emotional toll associated with difficult conversations that come up in pain clinic daily and the large number of patients who do not benefit from the procedures offered. Although it may appear as an 8-5 pm job on paper, any invested physician is going to be checking charts and making phone calls after hours, especially on procedure days. Some people are better at managing difficult patients and setting expectations which comes with experience. Private practice owners will be crunching financial numbers after hours as well. Not saying this is good or bad but something to be considered when discussing "hours worked".

With anesthesia, the downside is some weekends and overnights but with shift based work you can truly dissociate from the hospital during your time off. With the anesthesia market being on fire at the moment, there are plenty of options for call/weekend free jobs where you are essentially working from 7-4 pm most days.

It is fascinating that pain is a fellowship within anesthesiology when the two fields are so vastly different. My last words of wisdom, when you practice in both areas keeping up with the literature is challenging. It is hard to be exceptional in both pain and anesthesiology.
 
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Hence my above post…
 
Dawkter said:
Pain obviously has many pros regarding autonomy, advancement of procedural skills, innovative technologies, long term patient contact etc. With that said, there is an emotional toll associated with difficult conversations that come up in pain clinic daily and the large number of patients who do not benefit from the procedures offered. Although it may appear as an 8-5 pm job on paper, any invested physician is going to be checking charts and making phone calls after hours, especially on procedure days. Some people are better at managing difficult patients and setting expectations which comes with experience. Private practice owners will be crunching financial numbers after hours as well. Not saying this is good or bad but something to be considered when discussing "hours worked".

With anesthesia, the downside is some weekends and overnights but with shift based work you can truly dissociate from the hospital during your time off. With the anesthesia market being on fire at the moment, there are plenty of options for call/weekend free jobs where you are essentially working from 7-4 pm most days.

It is fascinating that pain is a fellowship within anesthesiology when the two fields are so vastly different. My last words of wisdom, when you practice in both areas keeping up with the literature is challenging. It is hard to be exceptional in both pain and anesthesiology.
Click to expand...
Youre missing the biggest piece - equity. The income really scales when you own a percentage of the lean green money-making machine that is the ASC.
 
Dr. Ice said:
I still don’t really get why anesthesiologists go into pain…especially in this market. Many of my current colleagues are anesthesiologists and complain about patient care..and I sit there thinking to myself…bro…you can just put them to sleep…View attachment 408238
Click to expand...
Maybe it's a grass is greener type thing. I would love to give people the "good stuff" and make them high as a kite and have it be completely SOC.

But honestly docs in anesthesia really don't seem that happy except when they're talking about stock trades.
 
BobBarker said:
It is very hard figuring out how to transition from a single doc/owner to multiple docs/owners. Please be understanding when interviewing for private practice. We aren’t ever going to have large benefit packages for employees. It isn’t feasible in an office with 10 employees. We also can’t promise a portion of the business until we see an associate that wants to help and is capable of running the business. We don’t want to give up half the business we built and still be running the business on our own.
Click to expand...

There's no "pathway" to partnership. The new associate might not like the practice, and the current owners might not like the new guy/gal. It's a dating game. If you make yourself indispensable to an organization, then suddenly the choice architecture and incentives become intuitive.
 
Taus said:
Yes it’s annoying. But…. Review the LCD… Make a template or macro. Insert into notes prn. Done. It was a helpful exercise to familiarize myself with the criteria.

I recently did this for kyphoplasty, as I’ve been ramping up my volume. Wasn’t that hard, took about an hour. google the insurer (include carelon, evicore, etc) and CPT code, cut and paste the LCD into a word file, take a few minutes to edit it into a usable format, insert < key areas > to fill in the blanks and individualize to patients, upload to your emr. I include the title/# and date of the lcd version at the top of template in patient notes.
Click to expand...
Would you consider putting these in a google drive and sharing them?
 
Dr. Ice said:
I still don’t really get why anesthesiologists go into pain…especially in this market. Many of my current colleagues are anesthesiologists and complain about patient care..and I sit there thinking to myself…bro…you can just put them to sleep…View attachment 408238
Click to expand...
Freedom......I set my own schedule, I work where I want to work and with who I want to work with. Don't like the ASC where I bring my cases, I find a new one. If I want to take half days on friday, I do it. If I don't want to do a case @ 4pm I don't. If I don't like the staff I work with, I get new ones. I get to do things the way I want to do it instead of listening to some hospital admin, nurse, or surgeon telling me how to do my job. It's such a beautiful thing thant you can't put a price on.

Anesthesiologists don't really understand what they've been missing because we have only been treated one way in our career. As someone who worked at the same hosptial as both an anesthesiologist and pain doc, I can tell you It's a completely different experience when you're on the other side of the curtain.
 
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