Sustainable Health Care

I have been pondering over the new health care reform bill, and am thinking: how does Chiropractic fit into the equation?

I go back and forth with the idea of billing insurance. I am currently offering itemized receipts so clients can get reimbursed. However, sometimes this can be a challenge, and they end up going through the run around to get even part of their money back. It is challenging, because I do not want to deny anyone care.

The issue with the current model is that we as Chiropractors are limited in how much care we can provide under most insurance plans. What this means is only a certain number of visits is covered. If clients want to see a Chiropractor as a preventative and supportive health care option, it is not covered. Coverage usually allows for a small “treatment” plan, and care is not covered once they are used up. And, in recent years, a greater and greater number of insurance companies deny claims for Chiropractic unless there is a “crisis”. Many people choose Chiropractic care to keep their bodies and minds functioning at optimal levels, for primary health care and true prevention, and therefore, are not covered.

We live in a society where we tend to wait until a ‘crisis’ happens, and thus, medical costs in this country rise and rise every year. If people learn the tools about honest to goodness prevention and health, they will not have to pay for thousands and thousands of dollars once a serious issue arises. I feel that we as holistic health care providers, along with Naturopaths, Acupuncturists, and Nutritionists should be placed at the forefront of primary health care. And this is why:

The new reform bill is expected to reduce the federal deficit by $124 billion in the next 10 years, however; medical costs for procedures continue to rise at astronomical rates. Currently, medical doctors and providers are getting paid for volume of procedures they are administering, not on the health outcome of their patients.

The good news is that the health reform is going to experiment with this idea, and pay healthcare providers for how WELL patients get based on treatments. This in itself is a great shift in thinking within the current medical model. However, at the current moment, only medical providers are included within this experiment, and not “alternative” health care providers.

Modalities such as Chiropractic, Naturopathy, and Acupuncture base their entire protocol on how WELL people are in mind, body and spirit! These modalities have been working with this idea since the BEGINNING, and are working with more and more ways of tracking wellness through a combination of subjective and objective measures.

So what would it look like if we were included within the primary healthcare paradigm? Insurance would pay for these services, and guess what? People will start getting better and STAY better. And the cool thing is that insurance companies will still get paid because people will want to continue with and maintain their holistic healthcare plans, and use their coverage on a regular basis, not just for emergencies! This will greatly keep medical costs down, and people will start getting healthier. TRUELY healthier.

The problem? People will get better from a preventative and inside-out approach and may not need major medical treatments as much as they do with the current model. This may be a problem for the medical health care system…. not as much money coming in, and therefore not as much money still going out to medical providers and medical research.

Likewise, if medical doctors begin to be paid on the outcomes of treatments they are offering and not on volume like it has been, how are they going to measure this? Measuring if we are symptom free? The truth is, having no symptoms does not equal health. You can numb your pain with ibuprofen for years, but are you healing yourself with painkillers? The answer is, well, no.

Don’t get me wrong; there is a need for medicine, and a need for allopathic treatment options. These options are needed in CRISIS. Not as a means to towards getting people truly healthy.

So, is shifting “alternative” care to the forefront worth the potential loss of money that would normally be used for research in the testing of medicines and cutting edge surgical techniques? Perhaps… perhaps if we shift our paradigm of what we are researching.

In most cases, studying “alternative” health care models costs significantly less than traditional allopathic research. Why? Most of these modalities are case studies, use hands on approaches, and simple, natural methodology. No big machines, chemistry and pharmaceutical backing needed. Just more and more providers having the incentives to perform research in their given field.

This is potentially a win-win situation as far as I am concerned. Allow greater and primary coverage for holistic healthcare providers, get paid based primarily on measurable patient health and wellbeing outcomes, and increase the desire to dive into a different and more evolved realm of research.

The result? Astronomically reduced health costs, an increase in people being healthy and STAYING healthy, and an increase in knowledge and awareness into how holistic health care actually is SUSTAINABLE health care through progressive research. SWEET!

I am still considering billing insurance, even if it takes years before we are considered primary healthcare providers because I believe in the work that I do. I also believe that if someone comes to me in crisis and has insurance coverage, it is hard for me to turn them away because they cannot pay out of pocket. I am working towards my own research in this arena.

My goal will always be to work with the body to release Subluxations so healing can occur from the inside out. That just means I would have 10-12 visits (or whatever the insurance company allows) to start that process. And at least I have that time to start moving them towards true healing, education and health. Hopefully my clients begin to know the benefit in regular Chiropractic care and become a strong voices and advocates for a paradigm shift in our healthcare reform!