Outpatient Treatment of Patients with Chronic Pain An Analysis of Cost Savings

Long-Term Follow-Up of a Structured Group Treatment for the Management of Chronic Pain

“…This treatment program provides a means to help clients improve their coping abilities within the limitations of setting and fields of practice. The fact that this is an outpatient program is in its favor, as the few studies that have compared outpatient and inpatient programs have found that the results are similar and the outpatient programs are much more cost effective (Cicala & Wright, 1989).…”

“…Because of the high cost of inpatient hospitalization, more outpatient programs that teach cognitive-behavioral interventions are being implemented (Cicala & Wright, 1989). However, most of the research published about these programs is limited by the lack of long-term follow-up data, the use of retrospective data for follow-up, and the use of follow-up measures that are not comparable to those used at pretreatment (Linssen & Spinhoven, 1992).…”

Non-surgical chronic pain treatment outcome: a review

“…There was also no random treatment assignment in this study. Cicala & Wright (1989) compared treatment costs for inpatients and outpatients when they developed an outpatient program. They found that costs decreased but that their success rate as measured by return to work did not change.…”

Cost-effectiveness and pain medicine

“…Using hypertension as an example, Edelson et al calculated the cost of propranolol to be $20,000 to save a year of life (life-year), whereas captopril costs $130,000 to save a year of life. To receive reimbursement for a given therapeutic intervention, the practitioner of pain medicine is under increasing scrutiny to justify the medical necessity for the intervention [8]. Although support from the existing body of medical literature is helpful, healthcare financiers are also paying increasing attention to evidencebased decision making, CBAs, and CEAs as a means of rationing reimbursement.…”