Medical/Legal track offers valuable insights for prescribing clinicians on protecting their patients and their practice.
MONTCLAIR, N.J. (PRWEB) AUGUST 13, 2019
The popular Medical/Legal track returns to PAINWeek, and it will be more timely and relevant than ever. PAINWeek, the largest US pain conference for frontline practitioners, convenes its 13th annual meeting September 3-7 at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. The 5-day conference presents a diverse curriculum that will encompass over 120 hours of content across multiple course concentrations.
Jennifer Bolen, JD, senior PAINWeek faculty member, will present Get Your Specimens in Order: The Importance of Individualized Test Orders and Timely Test Utilization on Saturday, September 7. Attorney Bolen noted the importance of prescribers’ attention to licensing board, payer, and professional society guidance: “The government and payers continue to pursue prescribers who do not order medically necessary drug tests. Prescribers who fail to order proper tests, and utilize those test results in a timely manner, not only put their patients at risk, but they are also exposing their controlled substance prescribing to more scrutiny and possibly legal action. The main goal of the Specimens course will be to help prescribers understand how to use the patient risk assessment and monitoring process to structure prudent drug test orders and results. A secondary goal is to help providers see the difference between poor documentation and planning and that which reflects quality care and rationale decision-making.”
Also on September 7, Attorney Bolen will be presenting updated material to attendees and guiding them in evaluating their own efforts to educate medical staff and patients on overdose prevention in her course Embrace Changes and Prevent Overdose: A Basic Blueprint for Legal Risk Mitigation and Response. This session will use case examples and compare documentation that works and doesn’t work to support prescribing decisions and coordination of care. Bolen commented, “Healthcare practitioners are often caught unaware of the interplay between proper documentation of medical decision-making and medical expert evaluation of ‘standard of care’ issues surrounding patient risk, prescribing, and overdose events. Several recent cases against pain practitioners focus on these failures and the main street pain professional can certainly learn from the mistakes of others. There is much the prescriber can do proactively to signal his/her intent to get things right, and the updated material in this course should help practitioners demonstrate good faith efforts to provide quality pain care.”
Michael C. Barnes, JD, MIEP, will present I’m Not a Doctor, But I Play One in DC, on September 6. “With change happening so rapidly in the pain management field, healthcare providers are especially eager to learn about federal and state legislative and regulatory developments and their likely impacts on patient care. For the first time in many years, I can report at PAINWeek 2019 that policy makers are finally acknowledging the needs of people with pain, including those whose care has been disrupted by drug abuse prevention and enforcement efforts. But we still have a long way to go to achieve balance in policy and practice.”
The Medical/Legal track also will include Inside the Trojan Horse: Addressing Current Legal Actions Against Healthcare Practitioners, presented by Bolen, Michael R. Clark, MD, MPH, MBA; and Douglas L. Gourlay, MD, MSc, FRCPC, FASAM; and A New Leaf: A Legal and Medical Perspective on Marijuana Use When Prescribing Controlled Substances, presented by Attorney Bolen and Dr. Gourlay.
The 120+ hours of PAINWeek content across multiple course concentrations includes: acute, behavioral, integrative, and interventional pain management; chronic pain syndromes; neurology; palliative care; and pharmacotherapy, along with master classes, satellite events, and over 30 Special Interest Sessions. Full-day programs will be presented by the American Headache Society, the Myopain Society, and the International Pelvic Pain Society. The expansive curriculum is geared toward physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, nurses, pharmacists, hospitalists, psychologists, and other healthcare professionals involved in pain management.
For presentation dates and time, or to register for the conference, click here or visit https://www.painweek.org/painweek.html.
About Global Education Group:
Global Education Group focuses on producing partnership-based CME for healthcare practitioners. The Global team works with a select group of medical education companies, associations, academic institutions and healthcare facilities to develop and accredit live healthcare conferences and workshops as well as online activities. With each partnership or joint providership, Global brings accreditation expertise, project management excellence and grant funding intelligence. Based in Littleton, Colo., Global has accreditation with commendation from the ACCME. Global also holds accreditations to offer continuing education for nurses, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, dietitians, dentists and psychologists. Global is a division of Ultimate Medical Academy.
…to help prescribers understand how to use the patient risk assessment and monitoring process to structure prudent drug test orders and results. …help providers see the difference between poor documentation and planning and that which reflects quality care and rationale decision-making
