Dr. Maulik Bhalani M.D. knows that when people hear of pain clinics, some think of the so-called “pill mills.” He understands that after years of headlines about abuse of certain pain medications, particularly in Florida, the reputation is tough to shake.
But, at Dr. Bhalani’s Florida Pain Medicine on Windguard Cir. (across from Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel, or FHWC, where he moved in May from his former location on Ashley Oaks Cir. in Seven Oaks), he says the perceptions are not even close to reality.
“The typical working class person doesn’t want to see a pain management doctor because they think that doctor is going to get them hooked on medication,’’ says Dr. Bhalani. “Little old ladies, grandmothers, will come in and tell us…I know those stories that are out there on the news. But, when they come in here, from minute one, it’s a totally difference experience.”
The office is clean and lively, the doctors are open and friendly and the approach to managing your pain, which employs the latest technological advances, is always, they say, measured and restrained, yet effective.
“There’s not a bunch of guys outside in the parking lot smoking, looking disheveled, looking for pain meds,’’ Dr. Bhalani says. “That’s not the kind of practice we are.”
The kind of practice Florida Pain Medicine is, Dr. Bhalani says, is one that focuses on interventional pain management. “Start-to-finish pain care,’’ he says.
Sometimes, in the best cases, that means opioid management, ice and injections until the patient can complete physical therapy.
“Then, we wean them off pain meds, hopefully with the goal of we never see them again, which means they are doing great and back to living their life,’’ Dr. Bhalani says.
Florida Pain Medicine also offers Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) and ultrasound therapy.
In other cases, like patients with terminal cancer, Dr. Bhalani says his goal is not to let them live out their last days in misery.
Whatever the malady, “We never force anything on anyone,’’ Dr. Bhalani says.
Pain management means different treatments for different people. Every patient is unique, but the main goal for Dr. Bhalani and his associate at Florida Pain Medicine, Dr. Navdeep Jassal, M.D., is to help their patients return to a normal way of life. Their motto is “Restore Function, Relive Life.”
“We want to get you back to where you can live your life the way you like living it,” Dr. Bhalani says.
A Little Info About The Doctors
Dr. Bhalani, a huge local sports fan and 10-year Tampa Bay Buccaneers season ticket holder who dons a Jameis Winston jersey for home games, has followed in the footsteps of his father, who is a pain medicine doctor in the Ormond Beach area of Florida, as well as several of his uncles and aunts.
In fact, Dr. Bhalani is one of 13 cousins in his family – and all are physicians.
“We don’t know how to do anything else,’’ he says, chuckling and joking that he might raise his kids, who are ages 3, 1 and 10 months old, to be NFL punters.
Dr. Bhalani received his M.D. degree from the Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha, NE. He also spent two years as a resident at Maryland General Hospital in Baltimore in 2005; was the chief resident at the University of South Florida’s Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Residency Program; and completed an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Pain Medicine Fellowship in Interventional Pain Medicine at USF in 2010. He is Board-certified in Interventional Pain Medicine and in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation.
Dr. Bhalani’s credentials also include sitting on the Board of the Florida Society of Interventional Pain Physicians (FSIPP) as a Director-at-Large, and he is proud of the work the FSIPP did in helping craft the so-called “Pill Mill Bill” in 2011, which forced clinics to register with the state and banned doctors from dispensing opioid prescription painkillers like Vicodin and Oxycodone from their offices. The Prescription Drug Monitoring Program also was implemented, which Drs. Bhalani and Jassal reference to look at a patient’s prescription drug history.
Dr. Jassal says he heard about all the “wild wild west stories” about Florida’s pill mills when he was studying in New York.
“I didn’t believe it until I came down here,’’ he says. “But, it’s improved dramatically (since 2011), thanks to the efforts of Dr. Bhalani and others.”
A car enthusiast and avid runner who sometimes puts in 15 miles on a weekend as a way to relax, Dr. Jassal joined Dr. Bhalani in July after completing a Pain Medicine Fellowship at USF, where he was a student of Dr. Bhalani’s. Before that, he was a resident at North Shore-Long Island Jewish (LIJ) Health Systems and Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine in Great Neck, NY.
Most patients Drs. Bhalani and Jassal see are what you might expect — those suffering from back, neck and joint pain. Others have more serious conditions, like poor recovery from back surgery, painful diabetes and even cancer. Each treatment plan varies.
The doctors at Florida Pain Medicine say they prefer a conservative approach. Patients generally will not be prescribed any controlled pain medications on the first visit. The doctors are careful to give a full exam — surprising to patients who have been to other pain medicine doctors — and look over X-rays and other images and notes from the referring doctor. as well as run a urine drug screen.
Dr. Bhalani said he and Dr. Jassal will sometimes suggest a smaller dose of medicine than the patient is currently taking. Others are often offered alternatives to stronger prescription drugs, like local anaesthetic injections (epidurals, for example), anti-inflammatory drugs, physical therapy or even weight loss to relieve pain.
“If that doesn’t work, we’ll use more aggressive measures,’’ Dr. Bhalani said. “We really try to be kind of conservative initially.”
Dr. Jassal says that since joining Florida Pain Medicine in July, he has seen as many patients in six months as he expected to see in nine months or a year. On average, Drs. Bhalani and Jassal see 25-27 patients a day, a number they think is perfect to give them time to give each patient individualized care.
Business has been so good that Dr. Bhalani, who opened his second Florida Pain Medicine on Arbor Ridge Dr. in Zephyrhills on Nov. 16, says he hopes to open another this summer or in early 2007, in Brandon.
The expansion speaks to the popularity of the doctors and the office’s friendly, comfortable environment cultivated by Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner (ARNP) Louann Brown and office manager Stacye Ciegler.
Dr. Jassal thinks the office’s reputation, which includes strong relationships with local pharmacists and doctors, comes from the way the patients are cared for at Florida Pain Medicine. Dr. Bhalani says he recommends for his patients the same things he would for his own parents: “Literally, that is how we treat every single patient,” he says proudly.
A soft, personal touch and firm recommendations are something Dr. Jassal thinks patients appreciative. Sometimes, an injection, which can relieve pain for months, is suggested instead of a prescription. “Sometimes, they are like wow, I wish someone had recommended this 4-5 years ago.”
Dr. Bhalani says he recently treated a 90-year-old patient who told him, “Well, Doc, if this works as good as the last one, that’d be great,” to which Dr. Bhalani replied, “Oh, the last one helped you?,” and the patient told him that was the reason he hadn’t been back for seven months. “And I’ve been golfing the whole time!,” he said.
Not to be outdone, Dr. Jassal has a 97-year old patient who receives periodic injections, which he says, “keeps her happiness, and her happiness is dancing with her son,’’
Most of the office’s business, Dr. Bhalani says, comes from referrals. He thinks he treats as many local physicians and their family members as anyone in the area.
Dr. Bhalani can do procedures at Florida Hospital Zephyrhills, where he is the director of the Intervention & Pain Program, and at New Tampa Surgery Center on Cypress Ridge Blvd.
However, state-of-the-art pain management procedures are often performed in his Wesley Chapel office, as opposed to the hospital or at ambulatory surgery centers, which helps save patients money.
“The whole spectrum of care gives us flexibility,’’ says Dr. Bhalani.
To reach either the Wesley Chapel Florida Pain Medicine office (at 2553 Windguard Cir.) or the Zephyrhills’ location (38011 Arbor Ridge Dr.), call 388-2948.
