Standiford Helm, MD, of The Helm Center for Pain Management in Leguna Hills, Calif., discusses the key challenges and opportunities for interventional pain management physicians and practice success today.
Q: What are the top three keys for back pain physicians to build a successful practice?
Dr. Standiford Helm: I am IPM, so I will answer from that perspective.
How to build a practice is changing in that patients are being amalgamated into large groups. These groups like to keep their referrals within their own networks, so that one needs an affiliation with that network.
Otherwise, practice building is the same old blocking and tackling, getting to know referring physicians and, equally as importantly, the staff in their office who does the referring. Contacts between your office staff and the corresponding staff in referring office.
Keeping referring physicians informed, in the manner in which they want to be kept informed is important.
Finally, your office should function well. Examples include: Patients should be treated courteously, with timely scheduling. Authorization staff should keep the staff informed.
Q: What are the biggest opportunities in the medical legal field for back pain physicians?
SH: As an IPM doc, one big growth areas are in CRPS, both plaintiff and defense. The IASP criteria are seldom used. Another area is opioid prescribing, both med mal and medical board defense.
Q: Where do you see private physician practice headed in the future?
SH: Obamacare has pushed to have physician practices pushed away from private practice to hospital employment. Other factors include cost raising initiatives like EMRs and ICD-10. Further, younger physicians do not want to go into private practice. The latest impetus away from private practice is MACRA, which bring in MIPS, a system designed to transfer Medicare payments from small practices to large, >100 physician, practices. Private practice will continue, but as a niche item, largely driven by direct to consumer marketing.
Learn more from Dr. Standiford Helm at the 15th Annual Spine, Orthopedic & Pain Management-Driven ASC Conference + The Future of Spine in June 2017! Click here for more information.