March 2002

Level of Insurance Coverage Key in Alternative Care Use

New York - Although alternative medicine has seen a surge in the United States in recent years, a recently released survey suggests that select groups of Americans make the bulk of visits to alternative-care providers, Reuters Health reported.

Chief among them, researchers found, are patients who have full insurance coverage for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) providers. Among the more than 2,000 survey respondents, those with full coverage were five times more likely than those without coverage to visit a CAM provider frequently - eight or more times in a year.

In addition, women and individuals seeking therapy for diabetes, cancer, or back and neck problems were more likely than others to have seen a CAM provider at all in the past year, according to Dr. Peter Wolsko of Harvard Medical School in Boston, and his colleagues.

Overall, 44% of survey respondents said they had used an alternative therapy in the previous year, including herbal therapies, acupuncture, or massage. However, only a "small minority" of those who visited a CAM provider accounted for most of the overall visits to such providers, the investigators found.

Based on their results, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the researchers estimated that less than 9% of the U.S. population accounted for the large majority of the 600 million-plus visits to CAM providers in the year they studied, 1997.

"We found that whether or not someone has insurance coverage for CAM providers can make a big difference in the number of visits they make," Wolsko said.

Insurance coverage was a particularly strong factor in whether a respondent sought care from a chiropractor or massage therapist. In fact, 63% of those who reported having full insurance coverage of these services made eight or more visits, as compared with only 17% of those with no insurance coverage.

The researchers note that with the current trend toward providing increased coverage of alternative therapies: "CAM provider visits may continue to increase dramatically."

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