How well do you know your spine and what it requires?
Does your doctor? Does your insurer (ie,
Medicare)? Malverne Health & Wellness prides itself on understanding the
spine of each of our Malverne chiropractic patients. Your Malverne
chiropractor examines your low back when there’s
low back pain, your neck when there is neck pain, your neck when you have arm pain, your low back when there’s
leg pain, your thoracic spine when there is thoracic
(and even neck and low back) pain. Your chiropractor ”gets” your
spine. Unfortunately, sometimes your insurer does not.
The chiropractic profession strives to provide
the research to the insurers to pay for essential treatment for
your spine while your Malverne chiropractor strives
to communicate openly with your insurer for your optimal
care and with you for your optimal clinical outcome: back pain relief, neck pain relief, arm pain relief, leg pain relief,
etc.
YOUR INSURER
Administrators’ data doesn’t tell the whole
story about back pain. In one study comparing
self-reported low back pain to data collected by
health groups that track low back pain via billing codes
and the like discovered that these two groups
don’t agree. Self-reported data about low back
pain (21.2%) was greater than administration’s data (10.2%).
Characteristics of low back pain patients based on data varied
in a few areas – sex, health/behavior traits, and health care use
– leading to an undervalued prevalence of low back pain. (1)
Malverne Health & Wellness knows how prevalent back pain is and how it affects our back
pain patients like you.
YOUR BACK PAIN
In a study that specifically looked
at one influence on back pain - spinal stiffness - from the subjective
patient angle and the objective testing angle revealed
that these two measures don’t correlate well either. At least in
this comparison, real input was from people: patients filling out questionnaires and doctors who filled out
objective tests. These findings led the researchers to observe
that while these two sources do not correlate well, each is
important in the whole general picture of the
patient’s condition and care. (2) Your Malverne chiropractor factors
in this evidence to take care of your spine.
YOUR CHIROPRACTOR
Your Malverne chiropractor is an evidence-based
chiropractor. Evidence leads the spine relief treatment plan at
Malverne Health & Wellness. A fascinating study of chiropractic
students found that as each year of school passed they became
less vitalistic and more evidence-based. (3) After 7 or so years in school,
your chiropractor is ready to take care of Malverne
back pain and neck pain patients. The evidence of beneficial chiropractic
spine care keeps expanding! Researchers report today of
how the use of non-pharmacological pain management may inhibit
unnecessary use of opioids. Chiropractic is one type of non-drug
pain management offering. In an
analysis of 101,221 spine pain patients, 1.55 to 2.03 times more non-chiropractic
patients got an opioid prescription than chiropractic patients. (4)
Further, Medicare beneficiary patients who utilize chiropractic are found
to have higher clinical outcomes (faster recovery, fewer back
surgeries a year later, less opioid-associated
disability, fewer traumatic falls and injuries, slower declines in activities
of daily living and disability over time) at less expense (fewer
medical doctors visits for low back pain, less opioid expense, less back-surgery
cost) with higher levels of satisfaction. (5) These aren’t
bad trade-offs for the Medicare cost system and for the Medicare patient.
CONTACT Malverne Health & Wellness
Listen to this PODCAST
by Dr. Lee Hazen and Cheri Hazen RN on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr.
Michael Johnson as they described how non-pharmacological relieving
treatment of back pain using the Cox® Technic System of Spinal
Pain Management and other non-drug approaches help.
Schedule a non-surgical Malverne
chiropractic care appointment with Malverne Health & Wellness. Know that
Malverne Health & Wellness knows Malverne back pain, understands how it affects
you, and has a plan for its relief.