Highlights
- •Many adults in the United States used complementary approaches to manage their pain.
- •In 2007, U.S. adults spent $14.9 billion for this reason.
- •$7.5 billion was spent on visits to providers, eg, chiropractors, acupuncturists.
- •$5.2 billion was spent for nonvitamin, nonmineral dietary supplements.
- •Costs were comparable with those seen for out-of-pocket expenditures on conventional care.
Abstract
National surveys suggest that millions of adults in the United States use complementary
health approaches such as acupuncture, chiropractic manipulation, and herbal medicines
to manage painful conditions such as arthritis, back pain, and fibromyalgia. Yet,
national and per person out-of-pocket (OOP) costs attributable to this condition-specific
use are unknown. In the 2007 National Health Interview Survey, the use of complementary
health approaches, the reasons for this use, and the associated OOP costs were captured
in a nationally representative sample of 5,467 adults. Ordinary least square regression
models that controlled for comorbid conditions were used to estimate aggregate and
per person OOP costs associated with 14 painful health conditions. Individuals using
complementary approaches spent a total of $14.9 billion (standard error [SE] = $.9
billion) on these approaches to manage these painful conditions. Total OOP expenditures
by those using complementary approaches for their back pain ($8.7 billion, SE = $.8
billion) far outstripped OOP expenditures for any other condition; the majority of
these costs ($4.7 billion, SE = $.4 billion) were for visits to complementary providers.
Annual condition-specific per person OOP costs varied from a low of $568 (SE = $144)
for regular headaches to a high of $895 (SE = $163) for fibromyalgia.
Perspective
Adults in the United States spent $14.9 billion on complementary health approaches
(eg, acupuncture, chiropractic manipulation, and herbal medicines) to manage painful
conditions including back pain ($8.7 billion). This back pain estimate is almost one-third
of the total conventional health care expenditure for back pain ($30.4 billion) and
two-thirds higher than conventional OOP expenditures ($5.1 billion).
Key words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: August 27, 2015
Accepted:
July 14,
2015
Received in revised form:
June 10,
2015
Received:
March 11,
2015
Footnotes
All authors performed their work as part of their official duties. No outside financial support was provided. All authors declare they have no competing interests.
Supplementary data accompanying this article are available online at www.jpain.org and www.sciencedirect.com.
Identification
Copyright
Published by Elsevier Inc.
