Abstract: Disability Claimants and the Implementation of a Web-based Pain Assessment/Pain Management Program

Based on a recent study, our team has published an article in the “PAINWeek Journal” titled, “Disability Claimants and the Implementation of a Web-based Pain Assessment/Pain Management Program.”

For more information about this study, please see the abstract below.  To obtain the full article, click here.

One of the most frustrating aspects of a clinician’s work is getting patients sufficiently engaged in their recovery to comply with the recommended treatment. We present a case report describing the implementation of web-based pain assessment and pain management tools for use with short-term disability claimants. This case study reports on 89 short-term disability members/claimants with musculoskeletal clinical diagnoses who were offered the opportunity to access pain management programs (PainCAS and painACTION) previously found effective in pain management when used in doctors’ offices and at medical clinics. While the participation rate was negatively impacted by the trust deficit inherent in dealing with an insurance company, those patients who did participate fully had significantly shorter disability durations, higher return-to-work rates, and lower rates of progression to long-term disability compared with controls. These results suggest that some of the tools that are successfully in doctors’ offices and clinics to engage patients can also be useful in engaging the more skeptical disability claimants, although they also point to the need for enhanced efforts in engaging those patients.

To obtain the full article, click here.