Do Chiropractic Patients Have Lower Health Care Costs?
This excerpt is taken from a paper titled, "The Growing Role of Chiropractic in Health Care Delivery," in the November/December, 1992 issue of the Journal of Health Care Policy. The paper was authored by Miron Stano, Ph.D, professor in the School of Business at Oakland University; Jack Ehrhart, MD, MPH; and Thomas Allenberg, D.C. Research for the paper was supported by a grant from the American Chiropractic Association.
What is the real cost of including chiropractic care in health care plans? Is there any validity in the old argument by the insurance companies that chiropractic care is too expensive to include? Dr. Stano's work begins to answer the question:
"We are just beginning this task and already have found that chiropractic users tend to have substantially lower total health care costs (Stano, 1992). Based on the cost data available for study, the lower overall rate of spending is attributable to chiropractic patients having much lower inpatient utilization. Total outpatient costs, including the chiropractic component, are also slightly lower for chiropractic users. Thus the evidence is consistent with the view that chiropractic care reduces the use of both physician and hospital care."1
Imagine the impact on the world (not to mention the chiropractic profession or your own practice) if we could contribute adequate funds for the necessary research to establish these initial findings. Something to think about the next time you are asked to donate to chiropractic research.
Reference:
1. Stano M: A comparison of health care costs for chiropractic and medical patients, Oakland University, School of Business Administration Working Paper 92-01, July 1992.
