Advanced Pain Medicine Physicians

Information may not be reliable

I have closed my practice as of mid-February.
It has been very rewarding for me to relieve suffering for so many of our patients. I apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing you.
Your records should reside in the files of your referring doctors office as we usually fax those within hours of your visit or procedure. There is a fee for searching, handling and printing out medical records if you desire your own copy.
WAC 246-08-400

How much can a medical provider charge for searching and duplicating medical records?
RCW 70.02.010(15) allows medical providers to charge fees for searching and duplicating medical records. The fees a provider may charge cannot exceed the fees listed below:
(1) Copying charge per page:

(a) No more than one dollar and two cents per page for the first thirty pages;
(b) No more than seventy-eight cents per page for all other pages.

(a) The provider can charge a twenty-three dollar clerical fee for searching and handling records;
(b) If the provider personally edits confidential information from the record, as required by statute, the provider can charge the usual fee for a basic office visit.

(3) This section is effective July 1, 2009, through June 30, 2011.
(4) HIPAA covered entities: See HIPAA regulation Section 164.524 (c)(4) to determine applicability of this rule.

The reasons for closing are several. These include:

The procedures we provide are being increasingly denied for coverage by payers who cannot otherwise control their budgets.
Reimbursement per procedure has been cut back every year for several years while the cost of running our business has risen.
Private and solo medical practice survival is becoming highly threatened by unfair competition from hospital medical groups and unfair dealings with payers.
An influx of lower skilled doctors competes for our bread and butter cases.
All these factors have dropped our volume to about half.
The outlook for revitalization is dismal as payers, particularly Medicare, are looking to cut back coverage of procedures further. Even private payers tend to follow Medicare decisions and their payments reflect MC reductions.
Lack of meaningful tort reform.
Lease expiration was the trigger for studying our practice viability. With the above situation, I think it best to avoid a lease commitment.

Thus the loss of my practice is mostly attributable to government regulation, big corporate medicine practices, and insurances interfering with doctor -patient decision making.
Many of you have asked where you can go for interventional pain management.
The answer is not simple as some providers are limited in what they can offer. The suggestions I would make are:

David Velling, MD in Fedreal Way - provides the widest range of services with a great deal of experience. 253-874-8774
Jon Geffen, DO in Tacoma