Age and pain: are pain management clinicians keeping up with the increasing Medicare population?

There is an increasing need for pain management clinicians in the USA in the midst of the opioid epidemic and aging population. 1 The population of adults older than 65 years is estimated to make up 20% of the US population by 2030.2 Some estimates indicate that the prevalence of chronic pain in older adults to be about 20.4%.3 Pain in conjunction with other age-related changes may create a lower quality of life in the older adults.4 In this research letter, we aim to evaluate the accessibility of pain management providers for the growing Medicare population.