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<p>I’ve never heard of a chiropractor trying to treat ailments like that with chiropractic alone. That would be akin to a dentist trying to treat asthma with dentistry alone. Is it possible that those you’ve encountered were also naturapaths?</p>
<p>Another vote in favor of chiropractors. I think there is a gap in medical care between orthopedic surgeons on one end and masseuses (sp?) at the other. Chiropractic fills that gap. I haven’t been to one myself, but my athlete D has had excellent results with muscle/joint issues with a reputable chiropractor. (As usual) I agree with what coureur said above - don’t go to one for maladies unrelated to muscle/joint/spine issues.</p>
<p>The chiropractors who ran big ads here locally claiming to cure ADHD with chiropractic were- quacks. And yas, I pulled up quackwatch, as this site has a ton of info on chiropractic care. But there is data elsewhere addressing the tearing of arteries in chiropractic manipulation. I live in the city where a large Chirporactic college lost its accredidation for a host of reasons. I also know a few ambulance chaser chirporactors, who were openly willing to write up unnecessary treatment to increase the value of an auto claim. I am sure there are great chiropractors out there. But if I hurt, I’ll get a massage.Especially not going to have my head turned and “adjusted”. I’ve seen the effects of the stroke. One was a young cheerleader/dancer with her whole life ahead of her.</p>
<p>By that logic, I would assume that you would never, ever take a prescription med or have surgery (looking at the statistics above).</p>
<p>As illustrated in post #16, there can be tragedies in every profession, caused by human error. Such cases are extremely rare, however, in chiropractic - if they were common you can be sure the AMA/FDA would be fighting to shut down chiropractors.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-05/uoc--cto050703.php[/url]”>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-05/uoc--cto050703.php</a>
I don’t know if you are a chiropractor, lealdragon. Vertebral artery dissection after chiropractic manipulations unfortunatley isn’t all that “rare”. And suspending a cancer patient upside down in a doorway. That just ridiculous. I don’t care how many complementary “homeopathic” or “naturopathic” treatments could have been offered as complementary treatment. And advertising that one can CURE ADHD (not treat, cure) with chiropractic is also ridiculous. To each his own.
oh- heres another group of chiro supporters
<a href=“Chiropractic strokes after neck manipulation - risk management and lawsuits”>Chiropractic strokes after neck manipulation - risk management and lawsuits;
<p>Well, I just did a search on “chiropractic lawsuit” and immediately got several suits by insurance companies alleging “overtreatment” and fraud by chiropractors. I also found a 1998 NYTimes article about a new NY law requiring insurance companies to cover “up to 15” chiropractic visits a year.</p>
<p>Looking for more information, I searched on “chiropractor insurance fraud” and got 853000 hits; substituting “doctor” for chiropractor I got only 229000. This means absolutely nothing.</p>
<p>As I stated earlier, I’ve never heard of chiropractors claiming to cure ADHD thru chiropractic alone. I’m not saying I don’t believe you; just that I’ve never heard of it. I HAVE heard of chiropractors who are also naturapaths, but naturapathy is not recognized as a valid profession by the AMA, so they might have neglected to mention that.</p>
<p>I would agree that a chiropractor attempting to cure asthma or ADHD thru chiropractic alone would be a quack. </p>
<p>I am only making the point that pointing out the handful of quacks in the chiropractic profession should be kept in perspective. It should not be a basis to avoid chiropractic altogether, imo, any more than the many thousands of tragedies caused by allopathic medicine would be a basis to avoid allopathic medicine. I am not a chiropractor, but I am just trying to point out the imbalance here. If someone started a thread about a surgery they were considering, I doubt that you would see all these people cautioning him to be careful because there might be a few MDs out there who are quacks.</p>
<p>The handful of quacks should not be listed as though representative of the chiropractic profession, and that is what quackwatch does, essentially. They attempt to discredit any methodology that does not directly fit into their disease management paradigm, which is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year business.</p>
<p>OK, let’s not scare the OP. Here, we’re talking about dancers’ injuries, pretty clearly musculoskeletal. Not cancer, not ADHD, not ulcers. Muscles. Squarely within the regular treatment parameters for chiropractors.</p>
<p>We’re also talking about a chiropractor well versed in dance, knowing how dancers move and what they do. If he is an experienced professional, I would have not problem sending my d to him - in fact, that’s what I did.</p>
<p>Chedva-
The girl who had the vertebral artery dissection-- she was a dancer/cheerleader. Came to Atlanta to dance in the '96 olympics. Soooo sad.</p>
<p>I’ll ask my chirpractor for details on that lawsuit (BY chiropractors, not AGAINST chirpractors) next time I see him. 1998 sounds about right. I remember him telling me about it.</p>
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<p>I agree it means absolutely nothing. I would speculate that, since insurance companies have been dealing with MDs for many years, there would be fewer cases of fraud. I would surmise that the cases of fraud concerning chiropractors might be from their trying to get treatments covered that the insurance companies were not accustomed to covering. </p>
<p>That is pure speculation, of course. But as one who works in the insurance industry, I can say with certainty that there are very strict guidelines about what is covered and what is not. Anything outside those guidelines can be classified as fraud.</p>
<p>For example, an insurance company might specify the circumstances in which it will cover chiropractic treatment. It might be for preventive maintenance, or it might be for treatment of an injury. If the claim is filed inappropriately, it might be considered fraudulant.</p>
<p>This may reflect on chiropractors filing claims, or the patients of chiropractors filing claims, but it does not necessarily reflect on the value of chiropractic treatment itself.</p>
<p>jym, what you are doing (possibly freaking out the OP) is akin to me telling you to beware of letting your d have a minor surgery, because there have been cases of deaths from mistakes in hospitals. (or did you maybe miss post #16?)</p>
<p>The ONLY reason I even posted #16 was to put this in perspective. If you’re going to dig out cases of mistakes in the chirpractic profession, then let’s be fair.</p>
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<p>From Post #3. Doesn’t this tell you anything? No one needs “maintenance.” If you need “maintenance,” then you need an exercise program you can do yourself, that will make not only your back feel better but will also give you other advantages (aerobic, etc.).</p>
<p>That’s easy for you to say. You don’t spend your whole day kicking and punching and jumping and standing on one leg.</p>
<p>I don’t practice martial arts and I only see our chiropractor every once in a while, not regularly at all. After he fixed that old injury, I’ve been essentially pain-free, except for when I had a car accident or some other minor injury.</p>
<p>Who is willing to research the web to see how many physicians are licensed to practice in the US compared to how many chiropractors. Given the number of cases of insurance fraud reported, it certainly apperas that the percentage is WAY higher for chiropractors. Insurance fraud isn’t filing for non-covered services. That is simply a denial of a claim. C’mon leal. really.</p>
<p>The percentage is obviously higher. But, as I said, that doesn’t necessarily reflect on the value of chiropractic; only on the questionable practice of people trying to get their insurance companies to pay for their chiropractic care. I have heard of people trying to ‘fudge it’ because they resented having to pay for alternative treatments themselves. Insurance companies have never paid for alternative therapies, and now that they finally are beginning to pay for SOME of them, people are jumping all over it and going nuts with filing claims.</p>
<p>Yeah, it makes sense, actually.</p>
<p>A claim can most definitely be denied if it is filed inappropriately. There are different riders for ‘preventive maintenance’ and injuries may or may not be covered under those riders, and vice-versa. It all depends on how it is worded in the explanation of benefits. Chiropractic is not usually covered under most major medical plans - since any coverage at all is fairly a new phenomenon, it is covered only as explicitly stated. Any intentional misleading of the insurance company, in an effort to get something covered when it’s not normally covered, can be considered insurance fraud. If you intentionally lie on an insurance application or claim, that’s insurance fraud. As I mentioned, I sell health insurance.</p>
<p>I am a healthcare provider. I understand the filing of appropriate and inappropriate healthcare claims. If there are that many fraud cases/claims agains chiropractors, then it sounds like they were trying to get something covered when it was a non-covered service. I am not saying it is fair that insu companies exclude treatments. It stinks. I deal with this issue every day, and insurance companies are not exactly on my list of favorite organizations. But as you said, there is a big difference between an erroneous claim and a fraudulent claim. If chiropractors have had such a huge incidence of fraudulent claims cases… well, I find it rather difficult to believe that these were simply thousands and thousands of cases of “oops, wrong code” put on the claim.
You are entitled to nominate chiropractors for sainthood. I am glad you think they are so wonderful. I simply have a different perspective and opinion.</p>
<p>I believe you misunderstood my point. I was trying to convey that there may be more fraudulant claims filed because people are trying to get their chiropractic services covered when they know they aren’t covered. In other words, that many fraudulant claims must be intentional, not a simple error or wrong code entered.</p>
<p>That’s not exactly sainthood on the part of the people knowingly trying to file claims.</p>
<p>And, you seem to be misunderstanding my view of chiropractors, as well. I acknowledged that some are quacks (see post #27). So that hardly qualifies as me thinking they are ALL ‘saints.’</p>
<p>My only point has been, all along, that allopathic practitioners’ sites like quackwatch tend to be biased, and when they point out some isolated instances of chiropractic quackery, it is conveyed in such a way to imply that ALL chiropractors are to be avoided.</p>
<p>It is quite a double standard, since I have not seen anyone cautioning people about seeing allopathic practitioners, and clearly some of them are quacks too.</p>
<p>Quacks and ripoff artists can be found in both professions. I would just like to see chiropractic fairly represented. </p>
<p>Interestingly, no one has even commented on the statistics I posted…and why aren’t those figures posted on quackwatch?</p>
<p>Interesting coincidence with this thread coming up tonight. I just finished serving on a jury where the case had a chiropractic component. Discussion in the jury room was heated on this subject.</p>
<p>So you are saying that it is not just the provider, it is also the patients filing fraudulent claims. Oh, thanks, that makes me feel so much better. The patient cant file a fraudulent claim without the office charge/bill with the diagnosis and the CPT code for the service provided. I don’t care who actually filed the claim. Fraud is fraud.</p>
<p>Personally I prefer PT and/or good sports massage therapist for sports injuries–had very good results with my kids and h. who has back issues with these professionals.</p>