How well do you know your spine and what it requires?
Does your physician? Does your insurer (ie,
Medicare)? Pflugerville Wellness Center prides itself on understanding the
spine of each of our Pflugerville chiropractic patients. Your Pflugerville
chiropractor examines your low back when there’s
low back pain, your neck when you have neck pain, your neck when there’s 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 knows your
spine. Unfortunately, sometimes your insurer does not.
The chiropractic profession endeavors to deliver
the research to the insurers to pay for essential treatment for
your spine while your Pflugerville chiropractor endeavors
to communicate clearly with your insurer for your optimal
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 one study comparing
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
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 differed
in several areas – sex, health/behavior traits, and health care use
– leading to an underestimated prevalence of low back pain. (1)
Pflugerville Wellness Center 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 do not correlate well either. At least in
this comparison, authentic input was from people: patients who
filled out questionnaires and doctors doing
objective tests. These findings led 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 Pflugerville chiropractor uses this evidence to take care of your spine.
YOUR CHIROPRACTOR
Your Pflugerville chiropractor is an evidence-based
chiropractor. Evidence guides the spine relief treatment plan at
Pflugerville Wellness Center. A fascinating study of chiropractic
students revealed how as each year of school passed the students became
less vitalistic and more evidence-based. (3) After 7 or so years in school,
your chiropractor is ready to take care of Pflugerville
back pain and neck pain patients. The evidence of useful 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 a study of 101,221 spine pain patients, 1.55 to 2.03 times more non-chiropractic
patients filled an opioid prescription than chiropractic patients. (4)
Further, Medicare beneficiary patients who use chiropractic are found
to have higher clinical outcomes (faster recovery, fewer back
surgeries a year later, less opioid-linked
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 more satisfaction. (5) These aren’t
bad trade-offs for the Medicare cost system and for the Medicare patient.
CONTACT Pflugerville Wellness Center
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 alleviating
treatment of back pain using the Cox® Technic System of Spinal
Pain Management and other non-drug approaches help.
Schedule a non-surgical Pflugerville
chiropractic care visit with Pflugerville Wellness Center. Your Pflugerville chiropractor knows
your spine well and how to relieve it of pain: neck pain, arm pain, low back
pain or leg pain.