Improving Access and Decreasing Healthcare Utilization for Patients With Acute Spine Pain: Five-Year Results of a Direct Access Clinic

INTRODUCTION

Spine pain is one of the largest and costliest burdens to our healthcare systems. While evidence-based guidelines for spine pain have been established, and continue to evolve, the actual management of this condition continues to burden the healthcare system. This has led to increased costs due to inefficient entry to healthcare, utilization of treatments unsupported by clinical guidelines, and patient navigation through our healthcare systems. The purpose of this study was to assess the healthcare utilization and related outcomes for Active Duty Service Members (ADSM) receiving healthcare services in a novel acute spine pain clinic (ASPC) during the first 5 years of operation at a large Military Treatment Facility.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In 2014 the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Physical Therapy (PT) services designed a novel acute spine clinic intended to directly receive ADSM with acute spine symptoms for an initial evaluation by a Physical Therapist. The inclusion criteria into the ASPC were: ADSM, pain less than or equal to 7 days, no more than three prior episodes of acute spine pain in the past 3 years, and not currently receiving care from Chiropractic, Pain Management, or PT services. The exclusion criteria were: significant and/or progressive neurological deficits, bowel or bladder dysfunction, unstable vital signs or fever, hematuria or extensive trauma.

RESULTS

A total of 1,215 patients presented to the ASPC for evaluation between 2014 and 2019. The most common chief complaint was acute pain in the lumbar spine (73%), followed by cervical spine pain (15%), and thoracic spine pain (12%) represented the fewest. The average number of PT visits per patient was 3.5 (range 1-13) with 61.1% utilizing three or fewer visits. Over 95% of cases returned to work the same day as their initial evaluation. Sixty-six percent returned to work without restriction the same day as their initial evaluation. Light duty recommendations were provided to 412 (33.9%) patients ranging from one to 30 days, with greater than 85% of the light duty being less than 14 days. Recommendations to not return to work (sick-in-quarters) were issued to 56 (4.6%) patients. The sick-in-quarters recommendations were for a 24-hour period in 48 cases, 48 hours for seven cases, and 72 hours for one case. All encounters in which the patient first sought care at the ASPC for low back pain met the Healthcare Effectiveness Data Set standard for low back pain care of having no imaging within 28 days of the first encounter for nonspecific low back pain. A medical record review of 100 randomly selected patients within 12 months of the initial evaluation demonstrated decreased utilization of medication, imaging, and referral to surgical services.

CONCLUSIONS

This innovative approach demonstrates the potential benefits of rapid access to treatment and education for patients with acute spine pain by a Physical Therapist. Modeling this approach at Military Treatment Facilities may lead to decreased utilization of medications, radiology services, specialty care referrals, and reduced cost of care provided to individuals with acute spine pain.

Micro-opioid receptor alkylation in the ventral pallidum and ventral tegmental area, but not in the nucleus accumbens, attenuates the effects of heroin on cocaine self-administration in rats

The concurrent use of cocaine and heroin, often referred to as speedball, is a powerful reinforcer that has been reported in humans to sometimes result in heightened euphoria compared with either drug alone. Data from animal research indicate that the reinforcing efficacy of low doses of cocaine is potentiated by the addition of small amounts of heroin and that this potentiation is accompanied by synergistic increases in nucleus accumbens (NAc) extracellular fluid levels of dopamine. Although micro- and/or delta-opioid receptors may underlie this potentiation, the opioid receptor subtype or the loci responsible for this enhancement is not known. This experiment used intracranial administration of a selective micro-opioid receptor alkylating agent (beta-funaltrexamine (beta-FNA)) to assess the role of mu-opioid receptors in the NAc, ventral pallidum (VP), and ventral tegmental area (VTA) on the ability of heroin to alter cocaine self-administration. Rats were trained to self-administer cocaine, heroin, or their combination and were administered either vehicle or beta-FNA into one of each brain region and the effects upon drug intake assessed. beta-FNA administered into the VP or VTA shifted the dose-effect curve for the cocaine/heroin combination towards that maintained by cocaine alone. beta-FNA had no effect on self-administration of the combination of cocaine and heroin when injected into the NAc. These data suggest that heroin may attenuate feedback inhibition from the NAc to the VP and VTA when co-self-administered with cocaine, resulting in a positive modulation of the effects of cocaine.