Kahn Jeffrey MD

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I am pleased to welcome you to our interactive state of the art website, which brings our patients together with myself and our staff in a secure and convenient manner, from the comfort of your home, office, or anywhere there is online access! All of our website features are available to you 24/7, so whether you are here in Central New York, out of town for work or pleasure, or anywhere in between, you can keep in touch with our office and access these online features at any time.

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The most effective method of diagnosis and treatment requires a problem-solving and patient-centered approach to care.

Our problem-solving approach to care means that you will be seen by Dr. Kahn himself at each and every visit, and it is Dr. Kahn alone who reviews your medical records, listens to your symptoms, performs your examination, formulates an initial diagnosis, and determines your ongoing medical needs, whether diagnostic or therapeutic. Only after a careful review of all existing information is this achieved, and if more information is needed for Dr. Kahn to make an informed decision, it will be obtained before any testing or treatment is initiated.

This patient-centered approach to care, in which we take the time to determine the specific needs of the patient, and put those needs ahead of making a "quick" diagnosis, can avoid the need for repeated or possibly unnecessary tests or treatments. It is both a cost effective and clinically appropriate approach, supported by those insurance carriers who track our utilization of tests and procedures and consistently give us high ratings, allowing us in many cases to skip the need for prior authorization, allowing us to provide more timely care.

Dr. Kahn has been called "the specialist's specialist" by his colleagues, and has been honored to treat many local medical providers and their family members. He has also trained many of the medical providers in the area, so why see the student when you can be seen by "the teacher"!

Upon entering our office, you will notice how it doesn't look or feel like a typical doctor's office. Dr. Kahn actively participated in the entire construction and interior design process, so that while the entire office meets ADA requirements for accessability, it's design features provide for a warm and friendly environment while still efficient for our patients and staff.

Handheld mobile report dictation by Dr. Kahn in your presence to reinforce diagnosis and care plan
Electronic medical records with online review and signature with e-faxing or e-mailing of final reports
Onsite electrodiagnostic testing (EMG/NCS) and musculoskeletal ultrasound (MSK-US) suites

In addition to a busy clinical practice, Dr. Kahn continues to participate in a variety of non-clinical activities, which allows him to stay involved in both clinical education and governmental issues facing physicians today.

He has served as a faculty preceptor for the Introduction to Clinical Medicine Course for students at Upstate Medical University, where Dr. Kahn was an Assistant Professor and a founding member of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, between 1989 and 1998, before becoming our Medical Director.

Dr. Kahn was the first physician in New York to be Certified by the American Board of Independent Medical Examiners, and has since been named by the NYS Workers' Compensation Board as an Authorized Independent Medical Examiner.

For many years Dr. Kahn has served as the Chair of the Industrial Medicine Committee of the Onondaga County Medical Society, where he has developed and chaired statewide conferences on workers' compensation issues.

In 2009 he was appointed by the President of the Medical Society of the State of New York to the position of Chair of the Committee on Workers' Compensation and No Fault Insurance, where he represents the more than 20,000 physicians who treat injured workers and victims of motor vehicle accidents. In this role, Dr. Kahn has continued his almost 20 years of continuous effort to ensure that the best medical providers can provide their injured patients with the best care available, while fighting to minimize the bureaucratic restrictions on care.

The most common complaint with which any patient presents to any doctor is pain. This could include a headache, chest pain, abdominal pain, pelvic pain, spinal or limb pain, or many other pain related complaints. By definition, any condition is referred to as chronic if it has been present continuously for more than six (6) months.

So if a cardiologist treats chest pain of more than six months duration, ultimately determined to be due to coronary artery disease, from a combination of poor diet, lack of exercise, and a stressful job, which is improved with a healthy diet, regular exercise, stress management, smoking cessation and medication, without the use of cardiac stents or referral to a heart surgeon for cardiac bypass surgery, does this mean the cardiologist is really a chronic pain specialist?

Of course not, because the cardiologist has taken a patient-centered approach to care, carefully assessing all of the potential causes of chest pain, using the proper tests and treatments, and providing an effective treatment outcome. So why do some other specialists in physical medicine and rehabilitation call themselves pain specialists, rather than physiatrists, unlike Dr. Kahn?

The term pain specialist has been popularized in the last decade, because it implies to patients and referring docotors both the possession of a certain set of clinical skills and the willingness to treat patients whose pain related complains have not been successfully treated elsewhere by other providers. In reality, many but not all pain specialists provide nothing more than interventional pain management (i.e. nerve blocks, spinal cord stimulators) and multiple prescriptions for various controlled substances which other physicians may refuse to provide. While these pain specialists may have well trained skills in the performance of interventional procedures, their goal is not to determine the cause of the pain, and all of it's perpetuating factors, but is limited to treating the symptoms only.

Dr. Kahn's approach to pain management is different. His goal is to first determine why the pain is present, what factors may be contributing to it, how work and lifestyle may impact on it, what the previous test results may disclose about it's cause, and how the treatment to date has affected it. There is a whole person approach to the pain complaints, taking into account structural, metabolic, and behavioral factors, and a team approach including physical therapists, psychologists, and other medical providers as needed is utilized. The use of injections, medications, and therapies is based specifically on the goals of identifying and resolving the cause of the pain, and with a target of increased functional capacity.

The judicious and carefully monitored prescription and usage of various controlled substances and both central and peripheral acting medications in the management of chronic pain is not medically inappropriate itself, and may play a valuable role in the treatment of various types of pain related disorders, such as cancer related pain, among others. However, when multiple medications are taken simultaneously in increasing dosages without any relief of pain or increase in function, in the presence of significant side effects, other treatment alternatives must be considered.

Those patients who are seeking a physician solely for the prescription of controlled substances and/or those who seek a resource specifically for the performance of interventional pain procedures only would be advised to seek treatment at a different medical practice.