Hypnosis, Accelerated Bone Fracture Healing
University of California $30,000
Classical Homeopathy, Health Status
Hahnemann University, $18,420
Dance/Movement Therapy, Cystic Fibrosis
Emory University $30,000
Chinese Herbal Therapy, Common Warts
George Washington University $29,985
Imagery and Relaxation, Immunity Control
Northwestern University $29,985
T'ai-Chi, Mild Balance Disorders
Lenox Hill Hospital $30,000
Guided Imagery, Asthma
University of Texas Health Science Center $30,000
Imagery and Relaxation, Breast Cancer
University of Vermont $30,000
Manual Palpation, Lumbar Spine
Columbia University $30,000
Chinese Herbs, Hot Flashes
University of Minnesota $29,964
Macrobiotic Diet, Cancer
Alternative Treatments Gaining Popularity among Doctors and Consumers
Alternative therapy is fast becoming a $15 billion industry in this country. And many of the nearly 670,000 Western conventional, or allopathic, medical doctors in this nation have demonstrated an increasing openness to the possibility that alternative therapies may have merit. The first original published research, led by David Blum-berg, M.D., of the department of psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center at Syracuse, reported that over 90 percent of the doctors responding to survey questions said that they were willing to refer their patients for an alternative form of treatment. These findings were based on 572 responses to 2,000 questionnaires that were mailed to conventionally trained and board-certified internists and family physicians.
In late 1995, the results of a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine stated that "on average physicians perceive complementary medicine as moderately effective, with younger physicians more receptive than their older counterparts." Nonetheless, the study concluded by saying that these alternative therapies " urgently need to be tested in randomized controlled trials." Proponents of alternative therapies say that such testing won't work because of the unquantifiable components of many alternative therapies, including spirituality, energy, human interaction, and placebo effects. And in symposia and medical conferences around the nation during 1996, that point continued to be debated among the nation's top healers.
"It's an enormous problem. They are stalled around the methodological issue, how do you research this? And right now the methodological issues are virtually insurmountable. I think they're missing the point. They are always looking for the control group. Researching common sense gets very expensive."
—Robert Duggan, president of the Traditional
Acupuncture Institute, Columbia, Maryland, and former
chair of the Maryland State Board of Acupuncture
Back in 1993 David Eisenberg, M.D., and a group of researchers from Harvard reported in the New England journal of Medicine on their findings from a telephone survey of 1,539 respondents. The team discovered that in 1990 one in three American adults relied on an unconventional treatment for a health problem. Unconventional, for this study, was defined as meaning medical interventions not taught widely at U.S. medical schools or available at U.S. hospitals. The study also reported that Americans had made more visits to alternative practitioners—425 million—than to primary care doctors— 388 million—during that year. Amazingly, these same adults shelled out more than $13.7 billion for unconventional care, three-fourths of which came from their own pockets.
This past year, a Harvard-based study of medical directors of Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) in thirteen states found that chiropractic and acupuncture are the top two alternative therapies that HMOs plan to offer their members within the next one to two years.
Here are some other survey highlights:
58 percent of the respondents indicated that they plan to offer alternative care therapies to members in the next two years;
70 percent reported an increase in requests for alternative care therapies from members;
acupuncture, massage, and chiropractic were the top three therapies of interest to HMO members.
OTHER TRENDS IN ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE
Insurers are loosening the noose around the necks of alternative practitioners, and one of the first to change was the once conservative Blue Cross of Washington and Alaska. After conducting a series of town meetings across the state, Blue Cross launched AlternaPath, a pilot program covering naturopathy, homeopathy, and acupuncture. Enrollees paid $171 for up to $1,000 of treatment, and the pilot was limited to 1,000 subscribers. The program was filled to capacity within three months.
American Western Life of Foster City, California is another insurance company at the forefront with regard to alternative medicine. The company's wellness plan, available to individuals in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Colorado, is one of the first to offer coverage for alternative and traditional treatments.
State of Washington lawmakers passed legislation that mandated that all insurers and managed care organizations make the coverage of services for licensed alternative health care providers available to subscribers. Taking effect in January 1996, the ground-breaking Washington law set the stage for an Oregon proposal, the Healthcare Freedom Initiative, which failed on a technicality in the November 1996 elections.
Oxford Health Plans, a managed care company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, announced plans in late 1996 to become the first large medical insurer to offer a network of alternative care providers. Starting in early 1997, the Oxford Health options became available to individuals and employers in Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. For employers adding the alternative option to their benefits packages, premiums will increase by about $5 to $6 a member per year.
A hotline for health care practitioners—Natural Healthcare Hotline, a service developed by the Natural Healthcare Institute—has been established to provide access to research-based information on alternative health care products.
NATION'S FIRST PUBLICLY FUNDED NATURAL
MEDICINE CLINIC: COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS
OF KING COUNTY AND BASTYR
The Community Health Centers, a national nonprofit agency that provides care for underserved populations, will house one of the nation's first publicly funded natural medicine clinics in its Kent, Washington, center. In conjunction with Bastyr University and the Statistics and Epidemiology Research Corporation, Community Health Centers plans to offer natural medicine treatment to low-income, immigrant, and refugee populations in the Seattle area.
Natural medicine involves restoring health through encouraging the elimination of toxins. Practitioners of naturopathy believe that health is maintained by avoiding unnatural or artificial products in the environment and diet. Poor lifestyle habits are often corrected through adopting new behaviors in terms of eating, exercising, attitude, and self-care.
Alternative therapies will be available to these populations in addition to conventional treatment already available at the center. The clinic has $750,000 in funding, approved by the Washington State Legislature, which is provided by a State Legalization and Immigration Assistance grant. The research corporation will conduct studies evaluating patient satisfaction, cost-effectiveness, and health outcomes, and these findings will be compared to results for conventional therapies for the following health conditions: migraine headaches, high blood pressure, chronic ear infections, and asthma. Bastyr, an accredited natural medicine school and an OAM-funded specialty