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The Future of Health Care
With all of the recent reports stressing the
efficacy of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)
therapies, it was only a matter of time before research began
exploring the role doctors of chiropractic could play as
cost-effective primary care providers (PCPs).
A paper published recently in the Journal of Manipulative and
Physiological Therapeutics (JMPT) revealed that a managed care
network consisting of doctors of chiropractic as PCPs provided
equivalent care and saved substantial costs compared to care
provided by medical doctors and osteopaths. The analysis found
that chiropractors were not only able to diagnose and treat
patients at a level nearly equal to medical doctors, but that
those same patients were admitted to hospitals less frequently,
spent less time in hospitals for care, underwent fewer surgeries,
and used far fewer pharmaceuticals than other health maintenance
organization (HMO) patients, resulting in tremendous cost savings
and high patient satisfaction.
"Reliance on the conventional medical model, in which
pharmaceuticals and surgical interventions represent first-line
treatment, may not provide the best therapeutic index to our
patients," noted the study's authors. They added that a
chiropractic gatekeeper model of managed care "seems to
demonstrate the potential superiority of an integrated health
system in which chiropractic and CAM therapies play a significant
primary care role."
If nothing else, this information serves as a glimpse into the
future of health care - a future in which doctors of chiropractic
will treat a larger range of patients using an integrative
approach to medicine.
References:
Sarnat RL, Winterstein J. Clinical and cost outcomes of an
integrative medicine IPA. JMPT June 2004;27:336-347.
To learn more about how to stay healthy, visit
www.chiroweb.com/find/archives/general
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