Illustration by Malcolm Garris/PhotoDisc
Illustration
by Malcolm Garris/PhotoDisc
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June 22 , 1998 If you’ve ever used alternative medicine with satisfaction, get ready for a potentially big disappointment. Mainstream health care and third party payers are eyeing the $5 billion business, and soon it could be ruined. Everyone from the American Medical Association to hospital trade groups are encouraging their constituencies to define alternative medicine and find a way to bill for it. Soon massage and relaxation therapies will be right there on the list of services covered by pre-established providers within a health plan. That’s great, you might think—more services paid for, less out-of-pocket expense, so more people will have access to these choices. But here’s the rub. What people like most about alternative medicine is the alternative part, the fact that their care has been delivered in a less paternalistic, more customer-sensitive, humanistic environment. In the world of alternative medicine, the patients can choose everything. No one is telling them what will be paid for and what won’t. No one is defining which provider they can see, when, or where. In the world of alternative medicine, the patient is a true customer in a free market. A big part of the benefit patients receive from alternative medicine is derived from the fact that with nontraditional medicine, the patient is ultimately and truly in charge. A study in a recent issue of JAMA suggests that patients seeking alternative therapies are less satisfied with conventional health care and want to exercise more personal control over health care. Patients would rather see our current system of health care become more like alternative medicine than watch the slow bureaucratization of alternative medicine. Imagine that alternative therapies are widely covered by third party payers and managed care. You call your HMO or PPO to schedule a massage therapy appointment. You’re on hold for 20 minutes. There’s an opening in three weeks at a terribly inconvenient time. You take it anyway. After all, the neat massage place around the corner from your home just went out of business because it couldn’t compete with the HMOs’ and PPOs’ contract rates. So you drive to the hospital’s outpatient clinic, park on the third floor of the imposing parking structure, get to the reception area, and wait 30 minutes. It makes me tense just to think about it. Barbara
Bronson Gray, MN, RN |
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