How Frequently Do People in the U.S.A. Use Nontraditional Healthcare Strategies Today?
The exact number of individuals currently using nontraditional healthcare in America is not well documented. It has been estimated, though, that at least 10,000 practitioners now serve more than one million U. S. patients each year.
Nationwide, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) estimates that more than 30 percent of adults now use health care approaches developed outside of mainstream Western, or conventional/allopathic, medicine. Additionally about 12 percent of American children also currently receive nontraditional services.
Data collected in the 2007 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) included a comprehensive survey on the use of complementary health treatments. Findings there document that an estimated 3.1 million U.S. adults had used acupuncture in the previous year. The number of visits to acupuncturists tripled between 1997 and 2007. Also, according to the NHIS study, about 2.3 million Americans practiced tai chi and 600,000 practiced qi gong in the previous year.
What Insurance Coverage Is Available for Nontraditional Healthcare?
Many Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) nationwide currently offer at least one form of alternative health care coverage. Services most often covered are chiropractic care (87%) or acupuncture (47%).
There seems to be less reluctance on the part of insurers in America now than there was 10 years ago to cover nontraditional treatments. Insurance coverage for acupuncture, for example, has increased significantly during the past decade. Now the benefits package, more often than ever before, also includes treatments such as moxibustion, herbal medicine and massage.
In 1999, according to the Landmark Report, only about one quarter of all HMOs provided some kind of acupuncture benefit. A 2004 survey, funded by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust, evaluated coverage five years later. That study reported 47% of all employers then offered acupuncture as a covered health benefit, up from 33% in 2002. In contrast, 52% of the POS plans were found to cover acupuncture in 2004. About 47% of the PPO plans offered such coverage, while 44% of conventional plans included acupuncture benefits then.
The most common form of insurance coverage is reimbursement of patients for acupuncture treatment under physicians’ referral. The most prevalently covered conditions are pain-related.