How To Get A Referral For A Pain Management Doctor

How to Get a Referral for a Pain Management Doctor. When dealing with chronic pain it is best to see a pain management doctor. A pain management doctor specializes in chronic pain and will treat a persons pain the best way they know how. There are three options a pain management doctor will give a chronic pain patient when the patient sees them, pain shots, pain pills, or surgery. However, when a chronic pain patient wants the option of visiting a pain management doctor, they will need to get a referral from their family doctor first.

1. Visit your family doctor. If you are dealing with chronic pain you will need to see your family doctor first to get a referral to see the pain management doctor. Your family doctor will call the pain management center and make an appointment for you.
2. Get an MRI scan. An MRI scan is a magnetic resonance imaging scan. An MRI scan will scan the part of your body where you are having the pain. This MRI scan will show the pain management doctor what is causing the pain. When you go to your first  appointment, the pain management doctor will order an MRI scan for you so he or she can find out where the pain is and what is causing it. This will help the doctor decide what best to do to help manage your pain.
3. Go back to the pain management doctor. After you have the MRI scan done, you will have to go back to the pain management doctor so he or she can treat your pain. Once the pain management doctor views the MRI image, he or she will know how to best treat you for your pain. The pain management doctor will then decide to either give you pain shots, a prescription for pain medication, or if the problem is serious enough, surgery. Once the doctor decides what he or she will do to control your pain, you will have to go back every month or two months to see the doctor again so the doctor can find out if the option he or she used to help control your pain is working right.

Tips

• If you go to the hospital for any reason, tell them what kind of prescription medication you are taking. Make sure to let them know you are seeing a pain management doctor and are receiving pain medication.

Warnings:

• If the pain management doctor decides to give you pain medication, he or she will have you take a urine test almost every time you go back to your appointment. This is to make sure you are taking your pain medication right and to make sure you are not taking any kind of illegal drugs.
• If you take any other kind of prescription medication from another doctor, the pain management doctor can discharge you. Once you start getting prescription pain medication from the pain management doctor, you cannot get pain medication from another doctor.

Reference:

Pain Management