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Patients whose GP knows complementary medicine tend to have lower costs and live longer

Peter Kooreman and Erik W. Baars

Department of Economics, Tilburg University and Department of Care, Leiden University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands.

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Abstract

Background  

Health economists have largely ignored complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) as an area of research, although both clinical experiences and several empirical studies suggest cost-effectiveness of CAM.

Objective  

To explore the cost-effectiveness of CAM compared with conventional medicine.

Methods  

A dataset from a Dutch health insurer was used containing quarterly information on healthcare costs (care by general practitioner (GP), hospital care, pharmaceutical care, and paramedic care), dates of birth and death, gender and 6-digit postcode of all approximately 150,000 insurees, for the years 2006–2009. Data from 1913 conventional GPs were compared with data from 79 GPs with additional CAM training in acupuncture (25), homeopathy (28), and anthroposophic medicine (26).

Results  

Patients whose GP has additional CAM training have 0–30% lower healthcare costs and mortality rates, depending on age groups and type of CAM. The lower costs result from fewer hospital stays and fewer prescription drugs.

Discussion  

Since the differences are obtained while controlling for confounders including neighborhood specific fixed effects at a highly detailed level, the lower costs and longer lives are unlikely to be related to differences in socioeconomic status. Possible explanations include selection (e.g. people with a low taste for medical interventions might be more likely to choose CAM) and better practices (e.g. less overtreatment, more focus on preventive and curative health promotion) by GPs with knowledge of complementary medicine. More controlled studies (replication studies, research based on more comprehensive data, cost-effectiveness studies on CAM for specific diagnostic categories) are indicated.

Homeopathy es una revista internacional cuyo objetivo es promover el conocimiento y la práctica clínica de la homeopatía mediante la publicación de artículos de alta calidad en investigación tanto clínica cómo básica, de revisíones clínicas y basadas en la evidencia en homeopatía. Otros de sus objetivos son la promoción del debate y la revisión de la literatura científica homeopática.

Aunque nuestros alumnos tienen acceso al texto completo de ésta y otras revistas científicas, así como a otros recursos bibliográficos a través de la web de la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Zaragoza mediante sus claves personales, este último número es de acceso libre desde Elsevier. Por el interés de los artículos que contiene, nos parece conveniente hacer público dicho enlace.

Volumen 101, Número 1,  (Enero 2012)
Texto completo en formato HTML y .pdf

   Sumario:

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• Forthcoming meetings