How well do you know your spine and what it needs?
Does your doctor? Does your insurance provider (ie,
Medicare)? Pensacola Spinal Rehab Center prides itself on understanding the
spine of each of our Pensacola chiropractic patients. Your Pensacola
chiropractor examines your low back when there is
low back pain, your neck when there is neck pain, your neck when there’s arm pain, your low back when there’s
leg pain, your thoracic spine when there’s thoracic
(and even neck and low back) pain. Your chiropractor ”gets” your
spine. Unfortunately, sometimes your insurer doesn’t.
The chiropractic profession strives to deliver
the research to the insurers to pay for essential treatment for
your spine while your Pensacola chiropractor endeavors
to communicate clearly with your insurer for your best
care and with you for your optimal clinical outcome: relief of
pain.
YOUR INSURER
Administrators’ data does not 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 the like found that these two groups
don’t agree. Self-reported data regarding low back
pain (21.2%) was greater than administration’s data (10.2%).
Characteristics of low back pain patients based on data differed
in a few areas – sex, health/behavior traits, and health care use
– leading to an undervalued prevalence of low back pain. (1)
Pensacola Spinal Rehab 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 revealed
that these two measures don’t correlate well either. At least in
this comparison, actual input was from people: patients who
filled out questionnaires and doctors who filled out
objective tests. These findings led the researchers to notice
that while these two sources don’t correlate well, each is
important in the overall picture of the
patient’s condition and care. (2) Your Pensacola chiropractor uses this evidence to care for your spine.
YOUR CHIROPRACTOR
Your Pensacola chiropractor is an evidence-based
chiropractor. Evidence guides the spine relief treatment plan at
Pensacola Spinal Rehab Center. A fascinating study of chiropractic
students found that 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 Pensacola
back pain and neck pain patients. The evidence of useful chiropractic
spine care keeps growing! Researchers write today that the use of non-pharmacological pain management may inhibit
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 filled 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 more satisfaction. (5) These aren’t
bad trade-offs for the Medicare cost system and for the Medicare patient.
CONTACT Pensacola Spinal Rehab 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 utilizing the Cox® Technic System of Spinal
Pain Management and other non-drug approaches help.
Schedule a non-surgical Pensacola
chiropractic care visit with Pensacola Spinal Rehab Center. Your Pensacola chiropractor knows
your spine well and how to relieve it of pain: neck pain, arm pain, low back
pain or leg pain.