New Report Finds Chiropractic Is More Effective for Neck and Low Back Complaints
Thanks to John Wiens, D.C. for drawing our attention to this study!
This new report, prepared for the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress by the esteemed medical authors Niteesh Choudhry, MD, PHD (Harvard Medical School) and Arnold Milstein, MD, MPH (Mercer health and Benefits), produced these conclusions from the Executive Summary:
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- Chiropractic care is more effective than other modalities for treating low back and neck pain
Total cost of care per year:
1. For low back pain, chiropractic physician care increases total annual per patient spending by $75 compared to medical physician care
2. For neck pain, chiropractic physician care reduces total annual per patient spending by $302 compared to medical physician care.
Cost-effectiveness:
When considering effectiveness and cost together, chiropractic physician care for low back and neck pain is highly cost-effective, represents a good value in comparison to medical physician care and to widely accepted cost-effectiveness thresholds. Because we were unable to incorporate savings in drug spending commonly associated with US chiropractic care, our estimate of its comparative cost-effectiveness is likely to be understated.
They go on to state: Our findings in combination with existing US studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals suggest that chiropractic care for the treatment of low back and neck pain is likely to achieve equal or better health outcomes at a cost that compares very favorably to most therapies that are routinely covered in US health benefit plans. As a result, the addition of chiropractic coverage for the treatment of low back and neck pain at prices typically payable in US employer-sponsored health benefit plans will likely increase value-for-dollar by improving clinical outcomes and either reducing total spending (neck pain) or increasing total spending (low back pain) by a smaller percentage than clinical outcomes improve.
You may want to read the Full-Text report:
Nice job Frank.
I also like how you can read the full text at the end of the article. Looks good and easy for the reader.
Thanks for posting this piece of important information. It will be highly useful to share this with chiropractic patients.
What a great article, thanks Frank.
RESPONSE from Frank
Although I like back-patting as much as the next guy, it was our illustrious John who first pointed this out to me. It just took me a while to get “round-2-it”.
It’s wonderful having access to the full-text report. Yehaw!
Frank
[…] awesome friends at chiro.org posted the fantastic results from a new report demonstrating that chiropractic care is more Effective For Neck Pain and Lower Back Pain […]
YEAH! We will definitely share this with our patients. Thanks Dr. Frank!
Great article. I’m going to keep this one for future reference and to share with patients.
Sorry for the oversight! Thanks to John as well!
Chiropractic is finally getting the mainstream support thru research confirming what we already know…chiropractic is very effective in the treatment of neck and back pain, and much more cost effective than medications and surgery.
Very good find, Frank. Just validates what we’ve known for the last several decades and hopefully this pushes it out to the masses even moreso.
Indeed… great article Frank. All chiropractors should be leveraging reports like this for increased business.
Frank, awesome article.. I will be spreading it through out my chiropractic community.
Thanks for the great article. I am looking forward to sharing this one with my patients. Live well and be healthy!
I wonder what patients actually think about an article like this. If they are already patients, they usually don’t need a lot of validation from articles. They’ve got some results, and that’s why they are a fan of chiropractic.
And I really can’t imagine any chiropractic skeptics being turned by an article like this.
Really, I think it just makes us feel better about ourselves, which is probably where the problem lies anyways.
When will we stop feeling like we have to constantly prove ourselves to somebody? There’s a dozen chiropractors within 5 miles of our office. If chiropractors weren’t valid health care providers, we would be out of business in no time.
Just keep doing good, honest work and helping people in any way you can. That will build our reputation more than any article.
I am always shocked when this doesn’t make the evening news.
Frank, thank you for the article. It is something I will be sharing with my patient base and your contribution to the chiropractic community is inspiring!