CMS proposes to compensate providers for spending more time with pain patients. Tell them we agree!

The U.S. Pain Foundation recently submitted a comment on a proposed rule crafted by The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). CMS has proposed creating separate coding and payment for provider activities involved in chronic pain management. You can read our full comment here. 

We are delighted that CMS recognizes the enormous and pervasive challenge that chronic pain poses to the health and well-being of CMS’s beneficiaries. We strongly support CMS’s assertion that chronic pain management is complex and there are no existing codes that account for all the tasks required to care for a patient with chronic pain. 

The U.S. Pain Foundation hears weekly from chronic pain patients who cannot find primary care providers (PCP) who will take them on as patients. We believe that one of the salient reasons why these patients have been dropped from care and are unable to find new providers is the fact that PCP’s and other providers are not adequately compensated for the time involved in providing care to pain patients.

We believe a standalone code would best serve patients, physicians, and CMS. A standalone code would signal to physicians that when patients have complaints of pain that it is critical to take them seriously and conduct a thorough pain assessment. The most frequent concern of patients with disabling pain is that doctors do not take their complaints of pain seriously even when pain limits their ability to work or function daily.

CMS has provided a list of provider activities involved in holistically caring for a chronic pain patient. Tell CMS we applaud their efforts to try to include all the elements of best practice pain care as articulated in the 2019 HHS Pain Management Best Practices Task Force report. 

Tell CMS: WE AGREE and appreciate their efforts to support the needs of people with chronic pain across the country! 

To learn more details about our recommendations, please read our full submitted comment here.

Thank you for your support!