Wednesday, September 15, 2010

In this day in age the cost of musculoskeletal pain is driving our health care system to near bankruptcy. There's a major shift that could occur that would minimize the expenditure and this could be implemented immediately.

The emphasis on treatment for musculoskeletal pain is a typical frequency of several times a week, usually 3 times a week, for anywhere from 3 to 6 weeks. The way in which the health-care system could benefit from a cost standpoint would be to begin to shift toward once or at the most twice a week treatment with more emphasis placed on home exercise and recommendations to patients to implement. Musculoskeletal pain can and will in most cases resolve and thus a great deal of the tens of millions of dollars that are spent are unnecessary if the patient were to be given proper direction in terms of how to apply self-care and also dietary recommendations in addition. The emphasis needs to be on shifting the responsibility of healthcare from the practitioner to the patient so that the patient is involved in a more active role and the practitioner is continuing to provide treatment however a certain percentage of that treatment would include coaching the patient on how to manage their pain issue at home and at work.