How well do you understand your spine and what it needs?
Does your physician? Does your insurer (ie,
Medicare)? Paulette Hugulet, DC, LLC prides itself on understanding the
spine of each of our La Grande chiropractic patients. Your La Grande
chiropractor assesses your low back when there’s
low back pain, your neck when you have neck pain, your neck when you have arm pain, your low back when you have
leg pain, your thoracic spine when there is thoracic
(and even neck and low back) pain. Your chiropractor ”gets” your
spine. Unfortunately, sometimes your insurer does not.
The chiropractic profession endeavors to provide
the research to the insurers to pay for essential treatment for
your spine while your La Grande chiropractor strives
to communicate clearly with your insurer for your best
care and with you for your best clinical outcome: back pain relief, neck pain relief, arm pain relief, leg pain relief,
etc.
YOUR INSURER
Administrators’ data doesn’t tell the entire
story about back pain. In one study comparing
self-reported low back pain to data collected by
health groups that track low back pain via billing codes
and the like found that these two sources
do not agree. Self-reported data regarding low back
pain (21.2%) was greater than administration’s data (10.2%).
Characteristics of low back pain patients founded on data varied
in a few areas – sex, health/behavior traits, and health care use
– leading to an undervalued prevalence of low back pain. (1)
Paulette Hugulet, DC, LLC knows how prevalent back pain is and how it affects our back
pain patients like you.
YOUR BACK PAIN
In a study that expressly looked
at one influence on back pain - spinal stiffness - from the subjective
patient angle and the objective testing angle revealed
that these two measures don’t correlate well either. At least in
this comparison, actual input was from people: patients who
filled out questionnaires and doctors doing
objective tests. These findings directed the researchers to notice
that while these two sources do not correlate well, each is
important in the whole general picture of the
patient’s condition and care. (2) Your La Grande chiropractor uses this evidence to care for your spine.
YOUR CHIROPRACTOR
Your La Grande chiropractor is an evidence-based
chiropractor. Evidence guides the spine relief treatment plan at
Paulette Hugulet, DC, LLC. A fascinating study of chiropractic
students revealed how with
each year of schooling they became
less vitalistic and more evidence-based. (3) After 7 or so years in school,
your chiropractor is prepared to take care of La Grande
back pain and neck pain patients. The evidence of useful chiropractic
spine care keeps growing! Researchers write today of
how the use of non-pharmacological pain management may prevent
unnecessary use of opioids. Chiropractic is one type of non-drug
pain management offering. In a study of 101,221 spine pain patients, 1.55 to 2.03 times more non-chiropractic
patients filled an opioid prescription than chiropractic patients. (4)
Further, Medicare beneficiary patients who use chiropractic are found
to have higher clinical outcomes (faster recovery, fewer back
surgeries a year later, less opioid-associated
disability, fewer traumatic falls and injuries, slower declines in activities
of daily living and disability over time) at less cost (fewer
medical doctors visits for low back pain, less opioid expense, less back-surgery
cost) with higher levels of satisfaction. (5) These aren’t
bad trade-offs for the Medicare cost system and for the Medicare patient.
CONTACT Paulette Hugulet, DC, LLC
Listen to this PODCAST
by Dr. Lee Hazen and Cheri Hazen RN on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr.
Michael Johnson describing how non-pharmacological alleviating
treatment of back pain using the Cox® Technic System of Spinal
Pain Management and other non-drug approaches help.
Schedule a non-surgical La Grande
chiropractic care appointment with Paulette Hugulet, DC, LLC. Know that
Paulette Hugulet, DC, LLC knows La Grande back pain, understands how it affects
you, and has a plan for its relief.