News posted on February 08, 2009 06:08
On March 2003, Dr. George McClelland , D.C., testified
before the Department of Veterans Affairs about the efficacy and
cost-savings related to Chiropractic care over conventional care for
musculoskeletal problems.
In his testimony, he noted that the bulk of studies he reviewed
demonstrated lower costs for Chiropractic treatment, including
workers’ compensation studies, databases from insurers and an
analysis by a health economist in Canada. In fact, he cited specific
savings estimated by Pran Manga, the Canadian health economist.
Mr. Manga concluded that doubling the utilization of Chiropractic
services from 10% to 20% may realize savings as much as $770 million
in direct costs and $3.8 billion in indirect costs.
Dr. McClelland also cited the findings of the 1974 Congressional
Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce with regard to surgical necessity. This committee found that 17.6% of recommendations for surgery were not confirmed by second opinions.
Using these figures to extrapolate the number of unnecessary
back surgeries in the U.S. would mean that annually, figures would
approach 44,000 unnecessary surgeries per year at a cost of $484 million.
The CEO of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in
Boston summarized the gist of Dr. McClelland’s testimony this
way: “When all sources of error are added up, the likelihood that a
mishap will injure a patient in a hospital is at least three percent
and probably much higher. This is a serious health problem. When
one considers that a typical airline handles customers’ baggage at a
far lower error rate than we handle the administration of drugs to
patients, it is also an embarrassment.”
SOURCE: www.chiro.org/LINKS/ABSTRACTS/Testimony_to_the_department_of_veterans_affairs.html