Pain physician
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Transforaminal lumbar endoscopic discectomy is a minimally invasive spine surgery procedure performed principally for the treatment of lumbar herniated discs. Endoscopic spine surgeons around the world have noted how far patients will travel to undergo this minimally invasive spine surgery, but the actual distance patients travel has never been investigated. ⋯ Quality metrics in health care tend to be focused on how health care is delivered. Another health care metric that focuses more on what patients desire is presented here: how far patients will travel for innovative spine care.Key words: Endoscopic spine surgery, transforaminal, minimally invasive, travel, lumbar disc herniation.
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Observational Study
Occipital Nerve Stimulation for Refractory Chronic Migraine: Results of a Long-Term Prospective Study.
Refractory chronic migraine affects approximately 4% of the population worldwide and results in severe pain, lifestyle limitations, and decreased quality of life. Occipital nerve stimulation (ONS) refers to the electric stimulation of the distal branches of greater and lesser occipital nerves; the surgical technique has previously been described and has demonstrated efficacy in the treatment of a wide variety of headache disorders. ⋯ We consider that the trigemino-cervical autonomous and cervical connection may explain why ONS might relieve chronic migraine pain, but this is just a theoretical explanation which should be demonstrated in future studies. The results achieved in this study suggest that ONS may provide long-term benefits for patients with medically intractable chronic migraine. These outcomes are slightly better than previous reports and were maintained over the 7-year follow-up. We believe that an accurate selection of patients, realization of diagnostic occipital nerve blocks, psychological evaluations, rigorous surgical technique, and appropriate parameter programming helped us achieve these outcomes. Key words: Refractory chronic migraine, headache, occipital nerve stimulatino, peripheral nerve stimulation, occipital nerve block.
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Failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS) is a frequently encountered disease entity following lumbar spinal surgery. Although many plausible reasons have been investigated, the exact pathophysiology remains unknown. Various medications, reoperations, interventions such as spinal cord stimulation, epidural adhesiolysis or epidural injection, exercise therapy, and psychotherapy have been suggested treatment options. However, the evidence of the clinical outcome for each treatment has not been clearly determined. ⋯ Epidural adhesiolysis or spinal cord stimulation can be effective in order to control chronic back pain or leg pain due to FBSS, and its recommendation grades are A and B, respectively. Other treatments showed poor or inconclusive evidence.Key words: Failed back surgery syndrome, post spinal surgery syndrome, chronic low back pain, post lumbar surgery syndrome, epidural adhesiolysis, spinal cord stimulation, epidural injection, revision.
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Merit-Based Incentive Payment System: Meaningful Changes in the Final Rule Brings Cautious Optimism.
The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) eliminated the flawed Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) act formula - a longstanding crucial issue of concern for health care providers and Medicare beneficiaries. MACRA also included a quality improvement program entitled, "The Merit-Based Incentive Payment System, or MIPS." The proposed rule of MIPS sought to streamline existing federal quality efforts and therefore linked 4 distinct programs into one. Three existing programs, meaningful use (MU), Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS), value-based payment (VBP) system were merged with the addition of Clinical Improvement Activity category. ⋯ In addition, the final rule reduced the burden of ACI, improved the coordination of performance, reduced improvement activities burden from 60 points to 40 points, and finally improved coordination between performance categories. Multiple concerns remain regarding the reduction in scoring for quality improvement in future years, increase in proportion of MIPS scoring for resource use utilizing flawed, claims based methodology and the continuation of the disproportionate importance of ACI, an expensive program that can be onerous for providers which in many ways has not lived up to its promise. Key words: Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, merit-based incentive payment system, quality performance measures, resource use, improvement activities, advancing care information performance category.
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Symptomatic headaches attributed to unruptured brain arteriovenous malformations (ubAVMs) are very common and affect patients' quality life, but multidisciplinary care of ubAVMs to improve symptomatic headache remains unclear. ⋯ Occipital ubAVM is more likely to present with migraine-like headache, while frontotemporal ubAVM tends to present with tension-type-like headache. The effectiveness of multidisciplinary care for ubAVM to improve headache has been shown, but the natural history of ubAVM patients with headache remains unclear.Key Words: Unruptured brain arteriovenous malformations, headache, headache improvement, natural history.