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Touch for Health Education Newsletter
Documenting Outcomes Cost and Efficacy
August 20, 2004
Outcomes Costs and Efficacy
-- Profiling doctors and offices is here
-- Equivalent care and saved substantial costs
-- Pharmaceuticals and Surgical Interventions As First-line Treatment,
Not Best Care for Patients
-- AMI Model Leads to Better Patient Outcomes, Lower Costs, High Satisfaction
Rates
A New Managed Care Study Finds Improved Patient Outcomes
and Significant Cost Savings With Chiropractors as Gatekeepers. There
are many chiropractors, medical doctors, osteopaths and the assistants
to these doctors who have studied Touch for Health Kinesiology (TFHK)
and utilize these protocols daily with their patients. More TFH charts
are seen in DC and Medical offices than ever before. Outcome studies
are showing that the conventional drug/surgical model of disease care
as the primary, first method to be used has a lot of disadvantages.
In this issue I will be quoting from two articles
in Dynamic Chiropractic September 1, 2004, Volume 22, Issue 18, which
appeared on the web 8/5/04. I urge all of the offices that are utilizing
TFHK to utilize the etouch program so that we can accurately report
the outcomes of utilizing TFHK as complementary to the other chiropractic
care. Our research base will be running within the next 12 months so
let's get started now. You can order this research and clinical tool
for $59.95 plus S. Go to our site and click on etouch.
Profiling doctors and offices is here
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The new word in managed care is "Tiering" a grading of your
outcomes and then paying you accordingly. "In the state of Washington,
health plans have started tiered networks for primary care physicians.
This tiering is based on clinical outcomes, most notably efficacy .
In this brave new world, all doctors are going to be profiled for not
only their costs, but also their clinical outcomes. Their skill, art
and science will be monitored through patient outcomes. Tiering based
on clinical outcomes appears to be here to stay, at least for the near
future."
This quote is from an article by the top people
in chiropractic, Reiner Kremer, DC, DABCI, FAACP Chairman, American
Academy of Chiropractic Physicians Franktown, Colorado drrkremer@msn.com,
James Winterstein, DC, DABCR, FAACP (Hon) President, National University
of Health Sciences Lombard, Illinois jwinterstein@nuhs.edu Reed Phillips,
DC, PhD President, Southern California University of Health Sciences
Whittier, California rphillips@scuhs.edu. I know that medical and chiropractic
offices that utilize assistants that use TFHK get great results, we
need to help these offices to record their outcome on our research data
base.
Equivalent care and saved substantial costs
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A new research paper published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological
Therapeutics (JMPT ) has found that a managed care network consisting
of doctors of chiropractic as primary care providers (PCPs) provided
equivalent care and saved substantial costs compared to patient management
utilizing medical doctors and osteopaths.
TFHK can be utilized in a health care facility. It's use can contribute
substantially to patient satisfaction, lower costs and greater efficiency.
This has been my opinion and I believe the research is now proving it
to be accurate. We must however, do more research to back up what we
also have found to be true. I hear almost everyday about people helping
people, family, friends, clients/patients who have not been satisified
with previous care.
Pharmaceuticals and Surgical Interventions
As First-line Treatment, Not Best Care for Patients
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"Reliance on the conventional medical model, in which pharmaceuticals
and surgical interventions represent first-line treatment, may not provide
the best therapeutic index to our patients," noted the study's
authors. They added that a chiropractic gatekeeper model of managed
care "seems to demonstrate the potential superiority of an integrated
health system in which chiropractic and CAM therapies play a significant
primary care role."
In this study the chiropractors participating in the Independent Practice
Association (IPA) had a higher number of initial patient visits, which
were designed purposely to correct structural abnormalities in patients,
and provide information on lifestyle and diet modifications to prevent
more serious diseases from occurring in the future. In many instances,
Alternative Medicine Inc.(AMI) a part of the HMO, enrollees saw their
chiropractors an average of twice per month, sometimes more. "This
is in contrast to conventional medical Independent Practice physicians,
wherein the majority of members who have patients who are encountered
on a 'crisis-only' basis," the authors noted. This chiropractic
approach is similar to what we advocate and I hope it will become the
new standard for disease and health care. That would be prevention which
looks at the whole person as we can with Touch for Health protocols.
AMI Model Leads to Better Patient Outcomes,
Lower Costs, High Satisfaction Rates
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Analysis of coding data by the chiropractic primary care physicians,
combined with data on referrals to specialists and pharmaceutical usage,
revealed that when making a patient diagnosis, "agreement was found
between the conventional medical specialist and the chiropractic PCP
93.1% of the time." This analysis showed that properly credentialed
chiropractors could diagnose conditions almost as well as medical doctors,
including a range of conditions they might not normally be seen in the
conventional chiropractic setting.
The authors also compared patient outcomes from
1999- 2002 of patients enrolled in the AMI network versus those in the
traditional HMO setting. There were demonstrably fewer hospital admissions
among patients seeing a chiropractic PCP and fewer outpatient surgeries,
and the cost associated with pharmaceutical usage among chiropractic
PCP patients was approximately half that seen in traditional HMO patients.
These findings demonstrated the chiropractic network's "apparent
superior clinical outcomes" compared to conventional managed care
statistics over the same time period. One of the most dramatic differences
between patients in the chiropractic network and those in other HMOs
was in terms of hospital stays. In 2000, chiropractic patients spent
115 days in the hospital for every 1,000 "member months" they
were enrolled in the network. For patients of medical/osteopathic PCPs,
the number of hospital days per 1,000 member months ranged from 171
days to 344 days.
Contact Information
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email: thie@touch4health.com
voice: 310 589 5269
web: http://www.touch4health.com
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Touch for Health Education · 6162 La Gloria Drive · Malibu
· CA · 90265 3195
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