Creating an Integrative, and Financially Sustainable Program for Individuals with Chronic Pain

Full Title: Creating an Integrative, Effective, and Financially Sustainable Program for Individuals with Chronic Pain – Experience and Outcomes at the University of Vermont

Presenters: Jon Porter, MD – Division Chief, Complex Pain Management and Medical Director, Comprehensive Pain Program/Director, Osher Center for Integrative Health/Assistant Clinical Professor, Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont

Joshua Plavin, MD, MPH, MBA – Associate Medical Director, Comprehensive Pain Program/Clinical Assistant Professor, Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont

Description: The traditional medical treatment of chronic pain has failed, resulting in an iatrogenic opioid crisis, patients feeling disappointed and often hopeless, and clinicians facing a complex clinical issue with few treatment options. Offering an integrative and transdisciplinary approach to care, the Comprehensive Pain Program at the University of Vermont Medical Center opened in 2018. In this presentation, Drs. Porter and Plavin will offer an overview of the Program’s paradigm of care, its significantly positive treatment and cost of care outcomes, and the innovative financial bundle developed in collaboration with Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Vermont which underlies its financial viability.