Does your health ins. cover Chiro, or Acupuncture

[SRW]

Our health insurance is up for renewal and I noticed Acupuncture, had been added in to the more expensive options and Chiropractic, which was already on the high end plans, was now covered by the lowest cost plan.

Acupuncture--10% (Up to $50/visi 50% (up to $25/visit)
Chiropractic $10 co-pay (up to 30 visits per cal year)

I know that quite a few people take advantage of Chiropractic, as I hear the phrase "I'm off to the Chiropractor" quite often. I also overheard a conversation the other day where someone was explaining a new treatment they were getting from their Acupuncturist.

Is this wide spread or just a local phenomena? Does your insurance cover these or other Alt. Med.?

as an aside. I knew that auto-insurance medical covers Chiropractic, but not a regular HMO or PPO. Many years a go I went to a chiropractor, and found that the number of visits needed to fix my problem matched exactly, the maximum amount insurance would pay. Even though I had not improved significantly, as soon as the insurance limit was reached, I was declared cured by the Chiropractor. However, I was invited to continue seeing him out of my own pocket for "maintenance". Therefor, I suspect; many of the people who see a Chiropractor, need treatment, 30 times a year. I'm not sure if there is any way to verify this however.

 

[Almo]

Ours covers some alt-med.

 

[NewtonTrino]

The insurance at my company covers it. It seems to be a side effect of going for the better health plans that have lower out of pocket costs.

We are currently re-bidding for next year and I'm going to look for a plan that doesn't cover crap like acupuncture or massages. I'm guessing our rates are going to significantly increase because they claim they paid out 190% of what we paid in premiums last year.

Basically health insurance is an expensive nightmare. It's a huge portion of our overhead.

 

[ZirconBlue]

Mine covers "Spinal Manipulations"

Spinal manipulations for the detection and correction by manual or mechanical means of structural imbalance or subluxation resulting from or related to distortion, misalignment, or subluxation of or in the vertebral column.

$30 copay (in-network); 24 max. visits / year.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

If I was a Conspiracy Theorist, I would suggest that health insurance companies would just love their policy holders to take full advantage of all the complementary and alternative "modalities" as they are much cheaper and don't work.

For example: If someone has a headache and trots off to an MD, he (or she) might be given expensive tests and prescription drugs. If it turns out they have brain cancer then a few thousands of dollars might have to be spent for a cure. If the same someone goes to their closest woo specialist they may be treated with some dangerous spinal manipulation, given expensive doses of distilled water or some dried weeds. As they actually have undiagnosed brain cancer, they die in three weeks. Net benefit to the shareholders -- enormous.

Good think I don't think that.

Here in Ontario, the Evil Communist Government actually stopped paying for any chiropractic services some years ago (before that it was capped at a few hundred dollars). It may be that my supplementary health insurance pays for these things but, as I never intend to use them, I can't be bothered to check.

 

[Personal Grudge]

I previously worked in the health insurance industry in the US. As a claims adjudicator, I was basically one of those in the cubicle-farm that had to consider a claim, examine it against state legislation, and determine what services got covered. In the end... printing the check.

Regarding acupuncture and chiropractics, the insurance company did not seem to enjoy covering either of these expenses. However, some states contained legislation requiring the covering of certain expenses. (Unless my memory is faulty... I'm looking at you, California!)

Either way... certain medical codes for acupuncture were approved, and others were not. I'm not going to claim to be well-educated in the different forms of acupuncture... but some were indeed covered.

Chiropractics were basically covered up to a certain number of visits. After that point, the Chiropractor had to submit documentation regarding the case for further review. In the case of my insurance company, the visit maximum prior to review was 20 visits. I have a feeling that chiropractors were very good at learning just how many visits an individual insurance company would allow without review.

"Oh, you have THAT insurance? Well, I think we'll need about 20 visits to fix your ailment..."

 

[Mark6]

My insurance does cover chiropractic. Acupuncture, I am not sure.

 

[Pope130]

Yes and no. My company plan does cover chiropractic and acupuncture (as well as several other alternate therapies), however, I don't participate.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Of course. My boss's hubby is chiro.

 

[NewtonTrino]

One of the reasons that I do think we need some sort of health care reform is the cost of all this. I'll post here once we finish our current bidding process but last time for a family of 4 I think it cost us about $10,000 per year.

 

[rjh01]

Just discovered that if you belong to Medibank (a large health insurance company in Australia) and get extras you are covered for Acupuncture, Chiropractic, osteopathy and Naturopathy, but that is about the only CAM treatment you can get.

Link http://www.medibank.com.au/Client/Documents/pdfs/Singles_and_Couples.pdf