Chiropractors and Spine Surgeons Can Make a Great Team!

“In an unscreened practice, where the surgeon sees 100 patients, no more than 10 would be surgical candidates,” Dr. [Hamilton] Hall said. “As a surgeon wanting to do surgery, I don’t want to see 90 people who don’t need me.”

 

Chiropractors want to see the 90 patients and send the 10 (though by some researchers that number may be as low as 2) who need surgery to the spine surgeon, especially confident chiropractors who employ research-documented protocols like Cox Technic. Cox Technic seminars share the spine research, the biomechanics and clinical research behind the Cox Technic Flexion Distraction procedure as well as the hands-on, evidence-based protocols to get results in patients with back pain, radiculopathy, neck pain and arm pain radiculopathy.

 

The article Dr. Hall is quoted in, Canada's Costly Spine-Surgeon Backlog, patients who need surgery express frustration that they can't even get an appointment with the spine surgeon for weeks, months or even years and doctors who want to do surgery express frustration that they can't do surgery because the patients referred to them only need ice packs or exercise for back pain relief. These spine surgeons want "screened" practices meaning that the patients who come to them need their care. For spine pain patients, who better than the trained chiropractor to triage the lower back pain and neck pain patients appropriately? The chiropractor doesn't even require an MRI oftentimes to diagnose a back pain patient's problem, saving money for the healthcare system as well as unnecessary referrals when the MRI comes back with an abnormal finding that worries the general physician into a referral to a spine surgeon when the abnormality is not a source of pain.

“As a screening tool for back pain,” Dr. Hall said, “MRIs are worse than useless.”

As any chiropractic physician will agree, the thorough clinical examination is essential. It is even reported to be 86% accurate. Adding a positive MRI finding increases the accuracy of the back pain or neck pain diagnosis to 95%. (Bell: Diagnosis of lumbar disc disease. Sem in Spine Surg 1994;6(3):186-195) When a chiropractic physician orders the MRI, he or she should even have an idea of what it will reveal knowing the clinical findings.

 

See the calendar of courses for lumbar, cervical and thoracic spine training.  

The HONORS Cox® courses often touch on spine surgeon and chiropractor cooperative treatment. 

 

Together, chiropractic physicians, spine surgeons and patients can make a difference in spine pain and back pain relief and the healthcare system in which it exists.