When Ben Kasle talks about healthcare, he sounds more like an operator solving a systems problem than a doctor running clinics. As president of Elite Pain Doctors, he leads a network across Ohio and Indiana that blends chiropractors, nurse practitioners, and MDs under one roof—a model designed to fix what he calls “the middle ground” between surgery and medication. “There are services and procedures that get you out of pain without getting you addicted to drugs,” he said.
His bias is toward structure, and he’s scaling a non-opioid, patient-first framework that challenges the industry’s reflex toward over-medication and over-surgery. In his words, “Most people don’t realize how much life they’ve given up to pain.” That thought drives his philosophy: informed patients make better choices, and better choices create less dependency, more function, and ultimately, more life.
As he put it, the future of pain management “has to be more balanced.” Which is why our first question was about identifying our common misunderstandings as patients.
Q&A With Ben Kasle
Q
What do you think people misunderstand most about living with chronic pain today?
A
Ben Kasle: The biggest misunderstanding is mental. People have adjusted their expectations of life downward and started to call that normal. They’ll say, “Yeah, my life’s fine,” but then you ask, “What can’t you do?” and it’s a long list. They’ve redefined “fine” as functional survival, when in reality, it’s a restriction.
What I see every day is a kind of quiet resignation. People stop noticing what they’ve lost, so they stop seeking solutions. When you take the time to ask, “What would life be like if this condition didn’t exist? What would you be able to do that you can’t do now?” That’s when they start to see it. That moment of realization is where better care begins: when someone stops coping and starts reclaiming. It is possible, and this is not understood by many.
Q
You frequently mention ‘Coordinated Care”, what does that mean in pain management?
A
Ben Kasle: The system has trained patients to expect one provider, one diagnosis, and one answer. That’s a narrow model, and it’s broken. You go to a surgeon, and he’s going to recommend surgery. If you go to a chiropractor, you’re going to get an adjustment. Everyone gives you their trade as the solution. Our goal is to fix that bias.
We’ve found that when you mix three key professions—chiropractors, nurse practitioners, and MDs—and we build a care plan that’s agreed upon by all three, it’s integrated so you’re getting multiple disciplines aligned around your outcome before you ever commit to surgery or long-term medication. Pain management is best when you have a one-stop shop where you don’t have to bounce around to different clinics and hospital groups. This reduces fragmentation and puts the patient at the center of a unified decision. Coordinated care that makes sense.
“In this field, the industry measures success by how many procedures get done. I measure it by how much function we restore.” – Ben Kasle
Q
How do you decide when to take a conservative route versus something more aggressive in treatment?
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Ben Kasle: It really depends on what the patient needs and where they are in their journey. Every patient sits somewhere on a spectrum of care: from physical therapy and injections to minimally invasive procedures and, finally, surgery. The key is sequencing.
The job of the practice is to find the right next step, not the biggest one. If someone has already been through therapy and injections, don’t start over. So start forward. That’s what makes the model efficient and effective. It’s built on clinical logic.
In this field, the industry measures success by how many procedures get done. I measure it by how much function we restore.
Q
What does “less pain, more life” look like for a patient in real terms?
A
Ben Kasle: It’s the simplest metric we have for success: can you get your life back? It’s spending time with your kids without having to sit down every few minutes. It’s being able to work, move, live, and not have your day controlled by medication or discomfort.
A lot of patients think they just have to live with it. They’ve accepted their limitations. So when we talk about “less pain, more life,” it’s a framework for measuring outcomes. If healthcare started measuring success by functionality regained instead of symptoms managed, we’d see a complete shift in how care is delivered.
Q
What is the framework of how a patient should think when it comes to their health? Not what they should do, but how they should think.
A
Ben Kasle: The framework is simple but powerful: be curious, be informed, and be honest about what pain has taken from you. The first step is changing how you think.
Start questioning what you’re told. Don’t take everything at face value. Ask what each drug does, what each procedure is meant to accomplish, and whether it aligns with your goal of living more. An uninformed patient is dependent. An informed patient is empowered.
I tell people to run their healthcare the same way I run a business: understand every input and output. What’s the cost, what’s the benefit, what’s the risk, and what’s the return? That’s how you make good decisions. Once you think that way, you stop being a passive recipient of care and start being an active participant in your own recovery.
That’s the mindset that leads to less pain and more life.
Q
Looking ahead, how do you see pain management evolving in the next few years, and what kind of change do you want to lead?
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Ben Kasle: The future of pain management depends on integration and education. The system right now leans too far toward extremes: heavy medication or invasive surgery. There’s very little awareness of what exists in between.
That middle ground, procedures that reduce pain without addiction, is the future. It’s scalable, sustainable, and human-centered. Education is the lever. The more we teach patients to question, to understand, and to think critically about their care, the more control they gain over their own outcomes.
Q
What’s next for you? Where are you taking this?
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Ben Kasle: The next phase for us is national expansion: a non-opioid, integrated, patient-focused system that can operate at scale. I want people to know they have choices. Pain management should be defined by measurable life restored.
Follow Ben’s Journey
About Ben Kasle
Ben Kasle leads Elite Pain Doctors, an integrated, non-opioid pain-management network serving Ohio and Indiana. A builder-operator at heart, he combines clinical collaboration (MDs, NPs, and chiropractors aligning on a single care plan) with disciplined operations and finance to scale access to conservative, outcomes-driven care. Under his leadership, Elite expanded its footprint and capabilities, including the Southwest Ohio Pain Management Surgery Center, to give patients a balanced alternative to “medication or surgery only” decisions. Ben’s north star is simple: “less pain, more life,” restoring daily function so people can move, work, and rejoin the moments pain took away.
