Due to the Faltering Economy Chronic Pain Patients Are on the Rise Patients in Chronic Pain

By David Greene


The incidence of pain in America is at epidemic proportions. Approximately 1/3 of the country is dealing with a chronic pain problem. A lot of these individuals may qualify for surgery of some sort of help alleviate this pain. This could be a spinal fusion, raw joint replacement or a lumbar decompression surgery for a herniated disc.

Surgery is not cheap. Most patients have significant insurance deductibles, along with significant co-pays, which when you add up the patient responsibility could provide a significant economic detriment. Due to the current economy, many patients are opting to delay their elective surgeries and instead opting for non-operative pain management options.

Undergoing surgery may require a significant time off of work for individuals. The problem with this is that in this economy many individuals are scared about losing their jobs. Avoiding surgery and undergoing nonoperative pain management may allow the patient to simply miss a couple hours work every month due to appointments as opposed to weeks at a time for a surgical recovery.

With the current state of the economy and individuals have dropped their health insurance due to financial problems. Without it, it may be possible to pay out-of-pocket for pain management but not for the high cost of surgery.

Many patients in the early 60s will soon be on Medicare. If they are trying to decide whether to undergo surgery, they may just wait to the polar bear on Medicare so that their financial responsibility will be a lot less.

The national unemployment rate in America currently is around 9% so this factors into a decision a lot of times to avoid surgery. In some parts United States unemployment hovers around 20% because the continuing faltering economy.

Numerous reports are showing now that the medical industry is shifting into a new normal that is not going to go away. All medical aspects of care are involved in this such as patients want to know if they can negotiate the cost of their care in the medical device companies having to downgrade their economic projections due to less and less elective surgeries being performed.

JP Morgan did some research this year showing the office visits have dropped numerous times most recently about 10% from the year before. Most analysts in the field feel like the amount of surgical procedures will come back to pre recession levels once the economy improves.

For instance joint replacements have been shown to be some of the best quality of life procedures in the world. So at some point an individual will have the procedure when their economic situation improves.

Most individuals think of medicine as a recession proof industry. But that is inaccurate period now overseeing is a large shift in the economy that has even affected the desire of patients to have surgery, and has definitely shifted pain management into one of the most common specialties today.




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