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With an accident, there are hidden costs and the
awareness and frequency is unknown. Today,
as part of the chiropractic recovery process for those injured, an
understanding of how to x-ray and examine better in necessary to understand
more about the biomechanics of an accident.
Example – one would say, “at minimal damage to my car, I felt
okay at the time of the crash, but three days later I am starting to feel
some symptoms.” If this same
person were admitted to the hospital the day of the crash he or she would be
x-rayed and scripted muscle relaxers. The
emergency room doctors are truly doing their job.
They tell the patient that there are no fractures or apparent
pathologies. Now a
misunderstanding with this verbiage is that they are exactly correct.
There are no fractures but minimally that physician is not explaining
that there will be some post swelling and the patient should be checked out
further if these symptoms persist.
There was data developed named “wellness to pay.”
This survey was mapped to injury listed in the abbreviated injury
scale. The results were the
costs for caring for people with whiplash.
The authors of this survey based the results on the theory that takes
into account that people will be willing to pay to reduce the risk of injury
or fatality. The proceedings of
2004, in which police reported the costs, the injury severities they
reported totaled comprehensive costs for all MVCs (motor vehicle crashes).
The total for all MVCs was 346 billion dollars and 42.9 billion
dollars for all whiplash injuries. This
is slightly more than the total cost of heart disease.
The cost of whiplash alone compares to the cost of diabetes.
In my reviews, I have broken the cost down. The same costs, if handled by chiropractors, would be
one-ninth the cost of the 42.9 billion for whiplash injuries.
Even though chiropractic has been around for 100
years, as a profession we still have not been able to get the general public
to fully understand the multiple chiropractic benefits that include pain
relief without taking masking drugs and returning back to work sooner, as
most folks want to do. I take
many chiropractic seminars on the west coast and few on the east coast.
It is known that chiropractic is far better understood in these
areas.
Insurance companies, being profit motivated, realize
the value of chiropractic care. In
my 36 years of experience, on numerous occasions, when taking a case history
the patient has said to me, “I had this crash 10-15 years ago and never
really got over it.” That is
not whining and it is not quality of life.
If there are any questions that a chiropractor could help, consider
simply calling them and sincere efforts should be made at finding you the
best appropriate care at a responsible cost.
Chiropractically
Yours,
Robert
R. Zinser, D.C., C.C.S.P., P.C.
www.zinserchiropractic.com
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