Not Telling Your Doctor You Use Acupuncture and Chiropractic
People with chronic
back, neck or joint pain commonly seek acupuncture and chiropractic care
for relief, but many don’t tell their doctors about it, a new study
reports.
Researchers said they
were surprised to find that of some 6,068 chronic pain patients who
responded to a questionnaire, 47 percent reported using chiropractic
care, 32 percent said they used acupuncture, and 21 percent used both.
Only 42 percent said they used neither acupuncture nor chiropractic. All
of the patients were members of Kaiser Permanente Northwest, a group
model health maintenance organization based in Portland, Ore.
Many of the patients
studied did not share information about alternative treatments with
their regular doctors, and the information was not in their electronic
medical records. About a third of acupuncture users and 42 percent of
chiropractic care users did not tell their regular doctors about the
care.
Some patients who paid
for the care privately may have been eligible for insurance coverage,
said Dr. Charles Elder of the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health
Research, the paper’s first author. “Alternative treatments work for a
lot of patients,” he said, but communicating with your doctor is
important. “If I don’t know what my patients are doing, I can’t advise
them.”
Source is New York Times.
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