Access to chiropractic care and the cost of spine conditions among older adults.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Chiropractic care is a service that operates outside of the conventional medical system and is reimbursed by Medicare. Our objective was to examine the extent to which accessibility of chiropractic care affects spending on medical spine care among Medicare beneficiaries.

Study design

Retrospective cohort study that used beneficiary relocation as a quasi-experiment.

Methods

We used a combination of national data on provider location and Medicare claims to perform a quasi-experimental study to examine the effect of chiropractic care accessibility on healthcare spending. We identified 84,679 older adults enrolled in Medicare with a spine condition who relocated once between 2010 and 2014. For each year, we measured accessibility using the variable-distance enh

SUBMITTER: Davis MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6699757 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature