Spend Less Money and Improve Your Health
A new study
just published in the American Medical Association’s Archives of
Internal Medicine shows that employees with chiropractic health plan coverage,
as compared to those without, incurred a 41 percent reduction in hospitalizations
for back pain and a 32 percent reduction in back surgeries. Chiropractors have maintained for years that chiropractic care is more cost effective than traditional medical care for many neuro-musculoskeletal conditions. Now science has proven that case.
Back disorders
are the third leading condition that patients seek care from a doctor
and the seventh reason for medical procedures done in the hospital.
A 2003 study by the United States Center for Disease Control estimates a cost of 239.6 Billion dollars or 2.9% of our gross domestic product. This is a huge cost!
• Low back pain, the most common spinal disorder, affects over 80% of persons at some point in their life, and from 4–33% of a population at any one time. • Back pain is the most common cause of disability among young adults. • Many factors, physical, psychological and occupational, contribute to the occurrence of back pain. Psychosocial and economic aspects of health and work seem to have more impact on work loss than physical aspects of disability and physical requirements of the job. • Direct costs for all musculoskeletal conditions in the USA in 1995 were $88.8 billion, for which hospital costs were the largest component (38%). • Indirect costs for musculoskeletal conditions, which account for lost wages, were far higher at $126.2 billion. *(USA, 1995). • The total costs of musculoskeletal conditions in the USA, have more than quadrupled in three decades. *from World Health Organization Scientific Group, 2003 Most
Chiropractors and M.D.’s Work Closely Together Obviously serious limb trauma, cuts, fractures, tumors, etc, should immediately seek medical care. Many of the more costly conditions such as low back pain, neck pain, headaches, etc. can be significantly helped without high cost diagnostics and invasive treatment. In the last 5-7 years, the popularity of chiropractic has continued to rise. Chiropractors are well trained in appropriate treatment protocol, and when the case is not a chiropractic case, chiropractors will refer a patient on to the appropriate medical treatment. The lead author of this study is a medical doctor. This simply shows the collaboration that is occurring between medicine and chiropractic, to the patient’s benefit.
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