News posted on February 08, 2009 06:09
Employers who offer Chiropractic health plan benefits to
their employees can realize significant reductions in employee
utilization and overall treatment costs for back pain as compared
to employers who do not offer such coverage, according
to a new study published in the October 2004 issue of the
Archives of Internal Medicine. This is the first study to definitively
link Chiropractic benefits to reductions in healthcare utilization
and costs.
The study, sponsored by American Specialty Health in San
Diego, concluded that employees with Chiropractic health plan
coverage incurred a 41% reduction in hospitalizations for back
pain compared to those without this coverage, and also incurred
a 37% reduction in use of expensive CT/MRI scans.
The study resulted from a comparison of four years worth of
data from 700,000 health plan members who had Chiropractic
coverage to 1 million members without the same coverage.
One of the investigators in this study, Douglas Metz, D.C.,
stated that “our study shows that systematic access to managed
Chiropractic care...can reduce key cost factors that drive up
employer health costs in traditional care settings.”
The president and CEO of American Specialty Health,
George DeVries, added his comments: “This study demonstrates
that Chiropractic coverage can be a powerful cost containment
tool for employers and health plans that are struggling
to keep the lid on escalating costs.”
SOURCE: http://www.chiro.org/LINKS/ABSTRACTS/Chiropractic_Health_Plan_Benefits_Proven.shtml