Proposed LCD on Peripheral Nerve Blocks and Procedures for Chronic Pain
Medicare released a Proposed LCD on Peripheral Nerve Blocks and Procedures for Chronic Pain, with the elimination of all peripheral nerve blocks from coverage policy. The deadline for providing public comments is November 8, 2025. The American Academy of Pain Medicine has been working hard on your behalf to protect patient access to these procedures. Academy leaders attended the open meetings and coordinated our oral comments with multiple pain societies to ensure that the points made by society representatives were not redundant. We focused on sharing the LCD’s impact on patients.
AAPM submitted its open comments to the five Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) on November 7th, and we signed on to the Multisociety Pain Workgroup (MPW) Letters. The Academy addressed each procedure in its response. We recommend reading our initial alert, Medicare Releases Proposed LCD on Peripheral Nerve Blocks and Procedures for Chronic Pain, With Elimination of All Peripheral Nerve Blocks from Coverage Policy, posted on October 14th, for additional background on the proposed LCD. Another great read on the topic is a recent Voices in Pain Medicine blog post, “Preserving Access to Peripheral Nerve Blocks for Chronic Pain: Two Resident Physicians’ Perspectives on Medicare’s Proposed Local Coverage Determination (LCD),“ written by Eric Toan Phong Nguyen, DO, and David Jevotovsky, MD, MBA.
We also encourage you and your patients to sign the ‘Restore Medicare Access to Procedures – End Discrimination and Geographic Inequality’ petition on Change.org.
Click on the links below to review AAPM’s open comments to each of the five impacted MACs.
AAPM to CGS – Peripheral Nerve Block LCD
AAPM to NGS- Peripheral Nerve Block LCD
AAPM to Noridian- Peripheral Nerve Block LCD
AAPM to Palmetto – Peripheral Nerve Block LCD
AAPM to WPS – Peripheral Nerve Block LCD
MultiSociety Pain Workgroup Letter (This letter was sent to all five MACs)
The American Academy of Pain Medicine would like to recognize and thank the numerous volunteers who spent significant time and effort on drafting our public comments.
James Babington, MD
Antje Barreveld, MD
Alexandra Adler, MD
Fei Cao, MD
Zheyan Chen, MD
Jianguo Chen, MD
Philip Kim, MD
Timothy Furnish, MD
Jennifer Myunghae Hah, MD
Tigran Kesayan, MD
Narayan Kissoon, MD
Zachary McCormick, MD
Kate Nicholson, JD
Michael D. Osborne, MD
Nilesh Patel, MD, MBA
Jeffrey D. Petersohn, MD
David Provenzano, MD
Joshua Rosenow, MD, FAANS, FCNS, FACS
Nathaniel Schuster, MD
Wahenoor Singh, DO
Priyanka Singla, MD
Affecting health care on behalf of our specialty
AAPM supports pain patients and pain medicine clinicians by advocating for a balanced approach to safe and effective pain treatment. AAPM works to influence legislators, payors, and others in a position to set policies that impact patients.
The Academy recognizes the need for policies that support effective control of drug abuse without harming the appropriate treatment of pain and works with members and other pain societies to establish programs and to educate the public along those lines.
AAPM members are sought-after opinion leaders who serve on many key national coalitions and federal agency workgroups.
AMA House of Delegates Representation
AAPM holds a seat in the American Medical Association House of Delegates (HOD) and speaks for its members concerning issues critical to their pain practices. The HOD is the principal policy-making body of the American Medical Association.
This democratic forum represents the views and interests of a diverse group of member physicians from all 50 state medical associations and more than 120 medical specialty societies. Delegates meet twice per year to establish policies on health, medical, professional and governance matters, as well as the principles within which the AMA’s business activities are conducted.
Representation in the HOD is apportioned to medical specialty societies based on the portion of its physician members who also maintains AMA membership.
Because you and your peers have joined AMA, your voice is being heard. If you are not one currently, we encourage you to become an AMA member.
Meet Your AAPM Representatives
Robert E. Wailes, MD, represents the American Academy of Pain Medicine at the American Medical Association and is a former President of the California Medical Association.
“Our role as physicians includes looking at the bigger picture regarding healthcare. It is all of our responsibility to support the advancement of healthcare by utilizing organized medicine through our specialty, state, and national organizations. The AMA is the strongest voice for physicians on a national basis. It is very important that we maintain our specialty representation within the AMA which requires our AAPM members to also be part of the AMA.” — Dr. Wailes
Where Else Does AAPM Advocate?
Multisociety Pain Workgroup
AAPM participates in the Multisociety Pain Workgroup, a coalition of Medical Specialty Societies that collectively advocates for continued coverage of important pain treatment options.
Collectively, MPW Societies represent 100,000+ members dedicated in whole or in part to Pain Medicine.
National Pain Strategy
AAPM supports the National Pain Strategy (NPS), developed by the US Department of Health and Human Services, which many AAPM leaders helped to shape.
AAPM believes that successful implementation of the strategic goals in the NPS will create the cultural transformation of pain prevention, care, and education desperately needed for the American public.