The recent systematic review by the Clinical Compass on spine-related musculoskeletal pain – the latest study comparing chiropractic vs. medical care that demonstrates lower health care utilization when a DC is the initial provider – has been voted the top published article for 2024 by Chiropractic and Manual Therapies.
As reported when first released, the review, which included economic studies, randomized controlled trials and observational studies, arrived at a familiar conclusion: “Patients with spine-related musculoskeletal pain who consulted a chiropractor as their initial provider incurred substantially decreased downstream healthcare services and associated costs, resulting in lower overall healthcare costs compared with medical management.”
DC care was associated with lower overall costs, lower insurance / compensation costs and lower long-term health care costs. Factors contributing to these cost differences included lower rates of diagnostic imaging, opioid prescriptions, surgeries; injection procedures; specialist visits; ER visits; and hospitalizations.
According to the review authors, this is the first such analysis since 2015, which yielded similar findings: “Dagenais et al. found that health care costs were generally lower among patients whose spine pain was managed with chiropractic care.”
The review concludes with this powerful recommendation:
“When considering this evidence, it may be in society’s best interest for U.S. healthcare organizations and governmental agencies to consider modifying benefit designs to reduce barriers to access to chiropractic providers. Modifying or eliminating pre-authorization requirements, medical doctor gatekeepers, arbitrary visit limits, co-pays and deductibles may all be considered. Eliminating these barriers would allow easier access to chiropractic services, which based on currently available evidence consistently demonstrate reduced downstream services and associated costs.”
Source: Farabaugh R, Hawk C, Taylor D, et al. Cost of chiropractic versus medical management of adults with spine-related musculoskeletal pain: a systematic review. Chiro & Manual Ther, 2024;32:Article 8.
