Schedule (subject to change)
7:00a - 7:30a - Registration and Exhibits
Coffee will be served.
7:30a - 8:30a - Get Your Specimens in Order: The Importance of Individualized Test Orders and Timely Test Utilization
UAN 0530-0000-18-039-L01-P
AANP Rx Hours 0.0
Course Description
The government has ramped up its efforts in 2018 to connect claims of inappropriate opioid prescribing to financial gain, including gain from urine drug testing. While most physicians do not have a financial interest in a clinical laboratory, the government's decision to highlight an opioid prescriber's failure to timely utilize drug test results is significant, and suggests the government is looking at other factors tied to medical decision making. Thus, prescribers should pay attention to licensing board, payer, and professional society guidance on ordering drug tests and how to use drug test results when treatment involves opioid prescribing. Attendees will learn how to identify the core elements of medical necessity and document an individualized testing plan for each patient. This course will cover critical areas of medical record documentation, including the decision to drug test, when and how often; determining which drugs to test and why; and how to coordinate timely review and use of drug test results in connection with the patient's plan of care. Attendees will gain additional insight into these issues through position papers, published late 2017 and early 2018, by the American Academy of Pain Medicine and the American Association for Clinical Chemistry. The overall goal of the course is to assist prescribers in their quest to provide quality pain care to their patients and to document their rationale for drug testing and their treatment decisions.
Jennifer Bolen, JD
8:30a - 9:30a - Product, Disease Awareness, Medical Information Program*
Breakfast will be served.
Sponsored by Paradigm Healthcare, Jennifer Bolen, JD
9:30a - 9:40a - Break & Exhibits
9:40a - 10:40a - A Comedy of Errors: Methadone and Buprenorphine
UAN 0530-0000-18-032-L01-P
AANP Rx 1.0
Course Description
The most contentious, poorly understood analgesics today are methadone and buprenorphine. This fast paced workshop will equip practitioners with immediately implementable practical tips regarding when and how to use these analgesics, including dosage formulations, routes of delivery, appropriate use in therapy, drug interactions, dosage titration (both up and down), opioid conversion calculations, and more. All discussions will be aimed at enhancing clinical, economic, and humanistic outcomes on the individual patient and health system level.
Douglas L. Gourlay, MD, MSc, FRCPC, FASAM
10:40a - 11:40a - Evidence-Based Approaches to Chronic Pain Management: Time to Reconsider the Benefit of Technophilism?
UAN 0530-0000-18-037-L01-P
AANP Rx Hours 0.0
Course Description
Americans are obsessed with all that is technical, yet technologically-focused approaches to chronic pain management are not necessarily the most effective approaches. Despite their perceived promise, unimodal approaches such as medications, surgery, spinal cord stimulation, intrathecal opioid pumps, and various other interventional approaches are not necessarily the most effective ways to treat chronic pain. Primary care physicians, when overwhelmed by these patients, are apt to refer them either to interventionalists or surgeons prematurely, resulting in myriad unnecessary injections and surgeries--with iatrogenic complications associated with both. This presentation will emphasize the potential benefits of considering referral of patients with chronic pain to physiatrists--who are the pain specialists with the broadest armamentaria for treating the biopsychosocial complexities of these conditions.
Michael E. Schatman, PhD, CPE, DASPE
11:40a - 12:00p - Faculty Q&A
12:00p - 12:10p - Break & Exhibits
12:10p - 1:10p - Product, Disease Awareness, Medical Information Program*
Lunch will be served.
Sponsored by Salix Pharmaceuticals, Gerald Sacks, MD
1:10p - 2:00p - Embrace Changes and Mitigate Legal Risks Associated with Opioid Prescribing and the Issue of Overdose: An Updated Blueprint for the Frontline Pain Practitioner and Medical Directors
UAN 0530-0000-18-045-L01-P
AANP Rx Hours 0.0
Course Description
Overdose--a small word that packs a major punch, and a big reason for many recent legal regulatory changes in controlled substance prescribing and pain management. Too many physicians and allied healthcare practitioners are caught unawares by the legal issues surrounding overdose events, fatal and nonfatal. Often, prescribers are the last to learn about an overdose event and, worse yet, fail to take action once notified. Through a series of case examples, attendees will learn how to develop and implement overdose event policies and protocols. Attendees will receive copies of sample policies and protocols and learn how to tailor them to their respective practices and state licensing board framework. Professional licensing board and criminal cases involving overdose events do not usually end well for the prescriber, but there is much the prescriber can do proactively to signal his/her intent to get things right. While prescribers cannot control what their patients do once they leave the medical office, they are responsible for establishing a safe framework for opioid prescribing, including a proper response when something goes wrong.
Jennifer Bolen, JD
2:00p - 2:10p - Break & Exhibits
2:10p - 3:00p - Product, Disease Awareness, Medical Information Program*
Refreshments will be served.
Sponsored by SCILEX, Joseph Pergolizzi, Jr., MD
3:00p - 3:50p - Trainwreck: Addressing Complex Pharmacotherapy With the Inherited Pain Patient
UAN 0530-0000-18-057-L01-P
AANP Rx Hours 0.0
Course Description
The prescription drug problem in America has led to many guidelines and, in some cases, regulations aimed at stemming the tide of prescription drug abuse. Some are evidence based, but most are driven by fear and an overwhelming need to do "something." Unfortunately, while these guidelines have offered suggestions of how to apply this information in a clinical context going forward, they provide little information as to the management of those patients who already exceed these current guidelines. This is where the concept of the "inherited patient" comes into play. Some of these patients are doing well while some are doing quite poorly. The undeniable fact is that as these guidelines are being exceeded, risk of a bad outcome increases while likelihood of achieving therapeutic goals decreases. This workshop will, through the use of representative cases, help participants to recognize irrational pharmacotherapy and, when necessary, address it through a combination of pharmacological as well as biopsychosocial frameworks.
Douglas L. Gourlay, MD, MSc, FRCPC, FASAM
3:50p - 4:40p - Reefer Madness Revisited
UAN 0530-0000-18-398-L01-P
AANP Rx Hours 0.0
Course Description
Medical, and recreational, marijuana serve as sources of great confusion to patients and clinicians alike. A culture of "neuromysticism" around medical marijuana has arisen, leaving patients and clinicians alike confused regarding what constitutes "medical" marijuana. A part of this confusion is related to the poor quality of the available research on safety and efficacy, which are due, in part, to the restrictive scheduling of the drug. This lecture will focus on what we know, and what we don't know, about the efficacy and safety of medical cannabinoids. Specific recommendations regarding the safest and most effective use of medical marijuana as part of a pain management armamentarium will be provided.
Michael E. Schatman, PhD, CPE, DASPE
*Not certified for credit.
