Are you ready for the new healthcare system? Cox Technic has been preparing for decades. Note what is being said of today's healthcare system.
"Healthcare in the United States and through much of the world is changing, and all healthcare professions and practitioners have to rethink their practice model to fit into the new reality. The dominant features of the new healthcare vision are evidence based health care and cost effectiveness."
- description in Palmer College of Chiropractic Florida's Homecoming 2011 Program of the presentation of Scott Haldeman, MD, DC, PhD
"
Medicine By Committee" - the eye-catching title to
The Islander article recently published points to a reality in the healthcare payment system today. Like it or not, healthcare costs are out to be contained. How? That is to be determined. The federal government is making its strides. State governments are setting up committees. Healthcare payors are scrutinizing bills for services. Companies are trying to encourage healthier lifestyles. Individuals are deciding what is best for them and their families as to lifestyle choices, insurance plans, jobs. Everyone is trying to contain healthcare costs.
Today, medical procedures are scrutinized for their efficacy and cost for that efficacy. Evidence is called for in the decision-making process as to how medical procedures are eligible for reimbursement and if they will be reimbursed. And Washington state has developed its own committee to oversee what procedures in Washington will be reimbursed in the healthcare system, the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Committee.
"The committee assesses the effectiveness, risks and costs of medical procedures and devices covered by Washington for state employees, Medicaid patients and injured workers.
The committee has garnered scrutiny recently — even making headlines in the New York Times — because it explicitly weighs the costs in determining what state insurance will cover. Critics of national health care reform have held the program up as proof that federal reform could lead to rationed medicine and reduce options for patients."
"... University of Washington research professor Gary Franklin ... strongly supports the HTA (Health Technology Assessment) committee, arguing medicine should be either based on randomized controlled studies or well-designed observational research [emphasis added].
It’s the only way, he says, to stop runaway health care costs. “We have to look at what we’re paying for,” Franklin says. “A lot of what we’re paying for is unproven.” Medical devices are often regulated under obsolete standards, he says, and surgeries aren’t regulated at all.
“Do you pay millions of dollars for something that doesn’t work, but not cover 10,000 people?” Franklin says. “You can always find someone who thinks something works ... [but Washington state] law says to look at the evidence.”
[Pain specialist, Dr. Arthur] Watanabe, however, worries that with national health care reform, he’ll soon need to contact Washington, D.C., for recommendations in treating patients.
“Taking care of a patient is still more of an art,” Watanabe says.
“It’s not something you can cookbook like the government and insurance companies [believe].”
Cox Technic lead by efforts of many chiropractic physicians -
certified and not - and
researchers with Dr. James Cox have been preparing for this day of scrutiny and decision making as to payment eligibility of Cox Technic. Dr. Cox looks back to the NINDS conference in the 1970's when chiropractic was first discussed and added to Medicare and the insurance payment system's rise in the 1980's and the health costs rise in the 1990's as driving factors in the need to document the efficacy and improve clinical outcomes based on evidence and research to do what is right for patients and be reimbursed for the care provided.
Cox Technic has
evidence-based protocols and algorithms of decision-making in place that are supported by research-documented outcomes as to biomechanical efficacy and clinical data collections of days and visits (averages as well as specific condition days and visits because it is known that a disc herniation or stenosis demands more days and visits than a simpler lumbago or backache).
Federally funded research continues.
Field doctor research continues. The choice of technique is a personal and professional one for the chiropractic physician. Cox Technic strives to be the
evidence-based, research-documented
technique choice for chiropractic physicians in today's healthcare reality. Flexion Distraction, the chiropractic spinal manipulation procedure, is ready for scrutiny as the non-surgical procedure for treating spine pain: neck pain, arm pain, back pain, leg pain.