UMSN Researchers Receive $1.4 Million NIH Grant to Study How Americans Use Health Care System for Back Pain
“Most people will experience back pain at some point in their life, and consequently it’s a very expensive condition to the U.S. health care system,” says Matthew Davis, PhD, MPH, a University of Michigan School of Nursing assistant professor and member of U-M’s Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.
Dr. Davis and colleagues will investigate what happens when patients look outside the primary care system for treatment. They will examine the impact of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) providers, specifically chiropractors, on management and cost of back pain treatment.
Back pain is one of the most common reasons for patients to visit primary care physicians. With a predicted shortfall of 20,400 primary care physicians nationally by 2020, this research is considered especially timely. Dr. Davis believes this research will provide policymakers with the evidence they need to understand effects of coverage of chiropractic care, currently the only CAM service covered by Medicare.
“My research focuses on leveraging large data to answer health policy-relevant questions,” says Dr. Davis. “We’ll use national administrative Medicare data as well as geospatial data on where providers practice to explore what happens when patients relocate and experience a change in provider availability. In a nutshell, this will allow us to determine whether chiropractic care is being used as a substitute, or in addition, to traditional medical care for back pain.”
“Well-established guidelines advise against the use of narcotics and diagnostic imaging when a patient presents with garden-variety back pain; however current research indicate guidelines aren’t always being followed,” says Dr. Davis. “Interestingly, due to licensure regulations chiropractors are prohibited from ordering care discordant with these recommendations. Therefore, it’s conceivable that by absorbing patients who would have otherwise found their way into the medical system, chiropractors could be affecting how back pain is being managed on a national level.”
The funding comes from a $1.4 million Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health grant to be used over a four year period.
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Research in this release is supported by the NIH under grant number R01AT009003. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.
