P-070 - (Poster #77) An Innovative Approach to Leveraging Hospital and Nurse Practitioner Relationships in Chronic Pain Management

In an era of an opioid crisis, providing necessary chronic pain management services can be challenging, requiring practitioners to apply visionary approaches.

Purpose/Objectives:

This project presents an innovative interprofessional approach to leveraging hospital and Nurse Practitioner relationships in providing quality non-cancer chronic pain management in the outpatient setting. A hospital setting provides a safe and trusted environment for care, enhanced revenue for the hospital, autonomy for the practitioner, and high patient and employee satisfaction. The Nurse Practitioner opened an independent practice and is contracted by the hospital to provide pain management services in an outpatient clinic located within the hospital. Patients being seen in the clinic are billed by both the hospital and the provider. The hospital bill covers the location, equipment, staff and all other aspects of the clinic, and the provider fee is paid directly to the Nurse Practitioner’s business as payment for services rendered. The only costs to the Nurse Practitioner is to a billing agency, which collects a flat percentage of monies collected once the patient/insurance is billed.

Methods: Patient satisfaction scores were collected comparing year to date (as of May 2024), the previous 3 months, and last month (April 2024). In each patient survey there were 25 participants.

Results:

Four of the six categories received 100% satisfaction in all three time points. “Care Team Acts on Concerns” in the last 3 months received a 94.3% satisfaction compared to a benchmark score of 68.5% (greater than 25% above the benchmark goal). Additionally, “Would Recommend Facility” in the last 3 months received an 88.6% satisfaction compared to a benchmark score of 78.9% (almost 10% above the benchmark goal).

Conclusions/Implications for future research and/or clinical care:

Using this innovative model, direct referral to the Anesthesiologist for procedural management, hospital pharmacist for consultation, hospital services if needed, and local facilities for multi-modality care allows for very high patient satisfaction and noteworthy employee satisfaction. In addition, the hospital is able to capture enhanced revenue as the Anesthesiologist is able to focus solely on procedural management which increases volume, while the Nurse Practitioner manages the medication visits. Most importantly, however, quality interim care for chronic pain medication management that is not dictated by quotas or revenue allows the Practitioner to have control over scheduling, patient population, and modalities of care.