Primary Care Pain Medicine is a medical subspecialty available to both MDs and DOs. It is a one year non-surgical fellowship that can be undertaken after a full Primary Care residency is completed and requires successful completion of a Fellowship and a written Board exam. Its medical focus is in the treatment of acute and chronic pain using a variety of techniques which includes appropriate chronic opioid management.

Because Pain Medicine is a Primary Care subspecialty so it is predominately practiced in the office and not the Hospital. Procedures requiring a hospital such as intrathecal pain pumps and spinal cord stimulators are commonly referred to hospital Pain Management specialists.