Journal of general internal medicine
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Information on the prevalence of common imaging findings among patients without back pain in spine imaging reports might affect pain medication prescribing for patients with back pain. Prior research on inserting this text suggested a small reduction in opioid prescribing. ⋯ Inserting epidemiologic text in spine imaging reports had no effect on whether new non-opioid pain-related medications were prescribed but was associated with the number of new prescriptions for certain non-opioid sub-classes.
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In 2015, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) incorporated nurse practitioners (NPs) into remote triage call centers to supplement registered nurse (RN)-handled calls. ⋯ Incorporating NPs into a call center was associated with lower in-person healthcare use in the subsequent 7 days compared to routine RN-triaged calls.
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Comment Letter
Response to Letter to Editor from Drs. Barrett and Apodaca.