This excerpt is from an article titled A Strategy for Health Care Reform by Christopher Kent, DC, Esq. If you would like the entire article, just ask.
Thankfully, there is a strategy that could have profound impact on the health care crisis. What is it? Chiropractic care. Nope, I'm not talking about the episodic, symptomatic treatment of musculoskeletal symptoms. I'm referring to the economic and health benefits of chiropractic care in the context of a lifetime health care strategy.
The results of several patient-based studies suggest chiropractic care might result in significant savings of health care dollars. One such study conducted an analysis of an insurance database comparing people over 75 years of age receiving chiropractic care with nonchiropractic patients. The analysis showed those receiving chiropractic care reported better overall health, spent fewer days in hospitals and nursing homes, used fewer prescription drugs and were more active than the nonchiropractic patients. Furthermore, the chiropractic patients reported 21 percent less time in hospitals over the previous three years than the nonchiropractic ones.
Another study surveyed 311 chiropractic patients, ages 65 years and older, who received chiropractic care for five years or longer. Chiropractic patients, when compared with U.S. citizens of the same age, spent only 31 percent of the national average for health care services. The chiropractic patients also experienced 50 percent fewer medical provider visits than their comparable peers. The health habits of patients receiving maintenance care were better overall than the general population, including decreased use of cigarettes and decreased use of nonprescription drugs.
Spectacular decreases in the utilization of medical services and their attendant costs, were noted when DCs or other "CAM-oriented" practitioners were used as primary care providers. In an Independent Practice Association (IPA) which permitted patients to select a doctor of chiropractic as their primary care physician, clinical and cost utilization based on 70,274 member-months over a seven-year period demonstrated decreases of 60.2 percent in hospital admissions, 59 percent hospital days, 62 percent outpatient surgeries and procedures, and 85 percent pharmaceutical costs when compared with conventional medicine.