How well do you know your spine and what it requires?
Does your doctor? Does your insurance provider (ie,
Medicare)? Apple Country Chiropractic prides itself on knowing the
spine of each of our Williamson chiropractic patients. Your Williamson
chiropractor examines your low back when there is
low back pain, your neck when you have neck pain, your neck when there
is arm pain, your low back when there’s
leg pain, your thoracic spine when you have thoracic
(and even neck and low back) pain. Your chiropractor ”gets” your
spine. Unfortunately, sometimes your insurer doesn’t.
The chiropractic profession strives to provide
the research to the insurers to pay for essential treatment for
your spine while your Williamson chiropractor strives
to communicate clearly with your insurer for your optimal
care and with you for your optimal clinical outcome: relief of
pain.
YOUR INSURER
Administrators’ data doesn’t tell the whole
story about back pain. In one study comparing
self-reported low back pain to data gathered by
health administrations that track low back pain via billing codes
and such found that these two groups
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 founded on data differed
in several areas – sex, health/behavior traits, and health care use
– leading to an underestimated prevalence of low back pain. (1)
Apple Country Chiropractic knows how prevalent back pain is and how it affects our back
pain patients like you.
YOUR BACK PAIN
In a study that specifically examined one influence on back pain - spinal stiffness - from the subjective
patient angle and the objective testing angle found
that these two measures don’t correlate well either. At least in
this comparison, authentic 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 don’t correlate well, each is
important in the whole general picture of the
patient’s condition and care. (2) Your Williamson chiropractor factors
in this evidence to take care of your spine.
YOUR CHIROPRACTOR
Your Williamson chiropractor is an evidence-based
chiropractor. Evidence guides the spine relief treatment plan at
Apple Country Chiropractic. An interesting study of chiropractic
students revealed how with
each year of education they became
less vitalistic and more evidence-based. (3) After 7 or so years in school,
your chiropractor is prepared to take care of Williamson
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 prevent
unnecessary use of opioids. Chiropractic is one such non-drug
pain management offering. In a study 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 shown
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 higher levels of satisfaction. (5) These aren’t
bad trade-offs for the Medicare cost system and for the Medicare patient.
CONTACT Apple Country Chiropractic
Listen to this PODCAST
by Dr. Lee Hazen and Cheri Hazen RN on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr.
Michael Johnson describing 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 Williamson
chiropractic care appointment with Apple Country Chiropractic. Know that
Apple Country Chiropractic knows Williamson back pain, understands how it affects
you, and has a plan for its relief.