Have you ever taken vitamins or herbal supplements, visited a chiropractor or acupuncturist, taken a yoga class, had a massage, or learned to meditate? If so, you are among the 62 percent of Americans who have invested some of their healthcare choices in alternative or complementary therapies.

When complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is combined with conventional medicine, the approach is called Integrative Care. Recently, I had an opportunity to learn about this very patient-centered form of care during the taping for a TV program called Evolving Medicine, Emerging Choices which featured four doctors, an author and an insurance company representative. It will air tonight on WCNY-TV at 8 PM.

If you are at all interested in this approach to your healthcare, you owe it to yourself to watch. Learning about the real benefits of integrative care, and its way too slow adoption by both doctors and insurance companies, is eye opening, frustrating, hopeful, and requires some pro-activity from those of us with interest in this methodology.

Eye-opening, because there is evidence that some CAM therapies may help patients achieve better health without suffering the side effects of other, more difficult, conventional approaches.

Frustrating, because insurance reimbursements rely on the results of medical research, most of which is underwritten by pharmaceutical companies. Those companies will never choose to underwrite research that will prove there is an alternative to the drugs they profit from.

Hopeful, because student doctors may now have options to study new CAM therapies to help the patients they care for in the future. This is new. Until recently, CAM was left out of medical school curricula.

And what pro-activity is required from us? During the TV taping, the insurance company panelist stated that "insurance coverage is driven by consumers," and he invited viewers to contact him with input.

This is quite refreshing to me. An invitation to provide input on what gets covered by my insurance? It seems that at least 62 percent of us have interest in doing just that.

To that end, my next column will provide some suggestions about how that can be done. Since this is the season when many of us must choose next year’s healthcare insurance coverage, it may even affect those choices.

Watch the show tonight, or record it to watch later. As Hippocrates is my witness, watching it will be worth your time.

©  2006 Trisha Torrey

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