News / Profession

The Future of Chiropractic in Hospitals: A Survey of Hospital Chiefs on Alternative Care

Editorial Staff

What's the future for chiropractic inclusion in hospitals? A survey of 240 hospital chiefs conducted by the consulting firm CampbellWilson of Dallas, Texas, gives these figures:

  • 25% said they plan to add some form of alternative health care within the next 12 months.

  • 35% plan to offer "holistic medicine."

  • 16% plan to offer chiropractic.

  • 9% plan to offer biofeedback.

The hospital chiefs were not optimistic about health care in general:
  • 38% said they would not recommend health care as a career to high school or college age students.

  • 65% claimed that a decrease in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement was a principal concern.

"Health care executives are being asked to do more with less, and the pressure is taking its toll," observed Dana Wilson, a senior partner of CampbellWilson. Wilson noted, however, that hospital administrators see the services of complementary and alternative medicine practitioners as a possible way to make up for the revenues they expect to lose under the new Medicare Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS).

The OPPS is widely viewed with disfavor by administrators: 80 percent indicated they expected to lose revenue under the OPPS; 75 percent said they expected OPPS losses to be greater than five percent; and 39 percent estimated losses would be greater than 10 percent.

September 2000
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