Will Health Insurance Pay For The Neurostimulation And/Or The Pain Pump?
Dr. Nagy Mekhail: Medicare pays and most of major payers pay for the stimulative. But with any new technique, especially expensive technique in medicine, we need to provide data that it is effective and cost-effective.
We did a research in our own institution here. It will appear in publication ad in next year, where we showed that by proper patient selection, we can decrease healthcare utilization significantly, and actually, every patient. This study saved about $17,000 per year from utilization of healthcare resources.
They visit the physician less, they go the emergency room less, they acquire less procedures, less X-rays. If you calculate all this, actually it is cost-effective, and add to this improvement of the quality of life which you cannot put a price tag on.
Dr. Ken Follet: Neurostimulators and pain pumps have been around now many years. They are accepted as a standard of care for the treatment of chronic pain, and virtually, every insurance carrier pays for the surgery and the maintenance of the devices.
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