Are doctors of chiropractic underutilized at hospital-managed employer health centers? That's the conclusion drawn by the National Association of Worksite Health Centers and Foundation for Chiropractic Progress, based on a survey and subsequent advisory roundtable on "The Use of Chiropractors in Hospital-Managed Employer Health Centers."
The advisory roundtable, consisting of leaders from several large U.S. health systems that manage worksite health clinics, met on Dec. 1, 2021 in San Francisco to discuss survey findings. Per a F4CP press release, "employer and hospital groups still find it challenging to integrate DCs in their worksite clinics, in part, due to unfamiliarity with chiropractic care or inaccurate perceptions about the practice and its doctors. For example, 'some hospitals and private medical practices will not credential a DC due to their lack of knowledge about DC training and past perceptions of chiropractic knowledge and abilities,' according to the report."
The roundtable yielded several reasons for the lingering challenges, including employer and/or hospital knowledge gaps or misperceptions regarding the value of chiropractic care, and the limited experience institutions have with hospital credentialing for doctors of chiropractic.
However, the roundtable also provided an opportunity to clarify why chiropractors can and should be better utilized in worksite clinics: chiropractic can reduce absenteeism and increase employee retention; reduce utilization of more expensive health care services; and minimize medication-related incidents due to reduced use of opioids in favor of spinal manipulation.
Next steps: The roundtable summary provides two recommendations for "next steps" to improve chiropractic presence in employer health centers: 1) Involve consultants and brokers in "spreading the word" about the effectiveness and cost-savings possible via chiropractic care; and 2) Per the F4CP release, "The chiropractic community should develop and distribute financial analyses to consultants and advisors on how chiropractic care positively impacts neuromusculoskeletal disorders and pain management services based on health plan/employer medical and pharmacy claims data."
"Every employer wants their employees to be healthy, safe and productive," said Larry Boress, executive director, NAWHC. "We have seen first-hand how integrating chiropractic care into more of these clinics is helping everyone achieve these mutually beneficial goals. This report and roundtable event are important for helping the healthcare community as a whole understand how and why we need to make these integrations happen in more worksite clinics today."
