How well do you understand your spine and what it requires?
Does your physician? Does your insurer (ie,
Medicare)? Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office prides itself on knowing the
spine of each of our Groton chiropractic patients. Your Groton
chiropractor examines your low back when there’s
low back pain, your neck when there’s neck pain, your neck when there
is arm pain, your low back when there is
leg pain, your thoracic spine when there’s thoracic
(and even neck and low back) pain. Your chiropractor ”gets” your
spine. Sadly, sometimes your insurer does not.
The chiropractic profession strives to deliver
the research to the insurers to cover essential treatment for
your spine while your Groton chiropractor strives
to communicate openly with your insurer for your best
care and with you for your best 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 a study that compared
self-reported low back pain to data gathered by
health groups that track low back pain via billing codes
and such discovered that these two sources
do not agree. Self-reported data about low back
pain (21.2%) was higher than administration’s data (10.2%).
Characteristics of low back pain patients based on data differed
in a few areas – sex, health/behavior traits, and health care use
– leading to an underestimated prevalence of low back pain. (1)
Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office knows how prevalent back pain is and how it affects our back
pain patients like you.
YOUR BACK PAIN
In a study that expressly examined one influence on back pain - spinal stiffness - from the subjective
patient angle and the objective testing angle found
that these two measures do not 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 directed the researchers to notice
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 Groton chiropractor factors
in this evidence to care for your spine.
YOUR CHIROPRACTOR
Your Groton chiropractor is an evidence-based
chiropractor. Evidence leads the spine relief treatment plan at
Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office. An interesting study of chiropractic
students found that with
each year of schooling they became
less vitalistic and more evidence-based. (3) After 7 or so years in school,
your chiropractor is ready to take care of Groton
back pain and neck pain patients. The evidence of useful chiropractic
spine care keeps expanding! Researchers write today of
how the use of non-pharmacological pain management may inhibit
unnecessary use of opioids. Chiropractic is one such 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 12 months later, less opioid-associated
disability, fewer traumatic falls and injuries, slower declines in activities
of daily living and disability over time) at less cost (fewer
medical doctors visits for low back pain, less opioid expense, less back-surgery
cost) with more satisfaction. (5) These aren’t
bad trade-offs for the Medicare cost system and for the Medicare patient.
CONTACT Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office
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 utilizing the Cox® Technic System of Spinal
Pain Management and other non-drug approaches help.
Schedule a non-surgical Groton
chiropractic care appointment with Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office. Your Groton chiropractor knows
your spine well and how to relieve it of pain: neck pain, arm pain, low back
pain or leg pain.