Recently, I came across an article in Acupuncture Today reviewing a book, Evaluating the Economics of Complimentary and Integrative Medicine. The article goes in to more depth, but the big take away for me was the following: “The study followed patients and examined health outcomes as well as costs of acupuncture and costs of direct care. Direct healthcare costs over the next two years for the group receiving acupuncture totaled approximately $367 per patient, while direct healthcare costs for this same time period were approximately $515 per patient for the group receiving usual care only. Adding acupuncture to usual care at a cost of $319 per patient saved an average of $148 per patient (U.S. dollar amounts are estimates based on current values of UK pounds). If the investigators had included factors such as patient out-of-pocket costs and changes in work productivity, the savings may have been even more substantial. Namely, the addition of acupuncture to usual care could have accounted for a net savings of $370 per patient.” This is so encouraging for acupuncture (and the rest of the data bodes well for other fields of complimentary and alternative medicine).
But, this data could be even more impressive if, when evaluating the cost of acupuncture treatments, community acupuncture had been used in the price comparison. Imagine how much higher the savings would have been if the price of a treatment had ranged from $15-$45 instead of $85-$125?
Read the article. Read the book if you want. Come get affordable acupuncture and start saving money (and, more importantly, feeling better!).
http://www.acupuncturetoday.com/mpacms/at/article.php?id=32744