Posted by bleauberry on October 24, 2009, at 21:05:06
In reply to Re: Is Becoming Med Free a Reality?, posted by Sigismund on October 24, 2009, at 18:39:53
> >Many of alternative docs are not covered by med insurance.
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> YesBut some are. One I saw took Blue Cross. Even if they aren't, as long as they provide the "medical codes" for classifying your symptoms and the reason for the visit, you can usually get reimbursed for 50% of the visit from your insurance company by submitting a claim to them for each visit (instead of the usual 80% that is automatically taken care of without any work on your part).
Most insurance companies do allow you to see doctors outside of their programs, which is most integrative docs. What is important is that the clinician is an MD.
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> >They tend to need tons of expensive tests.
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> YesYes and no. They don't need them. They like to see them for a bigger picture, but they can do without them. Symptoms speak pretty clearly to someone who knows their stuff. I do not believe cheaper run-of-the-mill tests done in mainstream medicine offer any benefit because they often miss the obvious. Even if they were cheap, it was money thrown away, because they looked for the wrong things. I feel it is better, if tests are going to be done, to use targeted pinpointed ones specific for the symptoms, which mainstreet doctors don't use.
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> >I think many of them are charlatans that take advantage of people who have not been helped by conventional medicine and drain people of money.Then they should be reported to The Better Business Bureau and the State Medical Board. It is a blessing that patients have options when mainstreet doc fails. The patient does carry responsibility, in terms of approving which tests to do or not, and asking tough questions. The patient is the paying customer...the boss...the doctor is providing a service. It is up to the patient to get what he/she is paying for, or fire the underachiever. I've seen 3 different integrative MDs...two were certainly knowledgable but missed the obvious (Lyme) while the third was equally knowledgable but had a keen eye. Like anything else in life, you gotta shop to find the best deal. Same with mainstreet doctors, of which 90% were a disappointment to me. The fact that they were "cheap", as in my insurance paying for them, was totally worthless, because what good they were able to do for me was likewise worthless.
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> I don't know. Some of them are trying to do less harm. It's not as if anything is wonderfully effective.Things can be wonderfully effective. The problem is that human physiology and disease are so complex. We know so little. Much greater research is needed. With so many diseases, syndromes, and symptoms, we are still years or decades away from having answers. No matter what course we choose, it is almost all experimental...whether it be mainstreet docs or integrative docs, meds or herbs, or combinations of any of the above. But when the right approach is found, wonderful effectiveness abounds in thousands of stories across the country in some very serious diseases.
In most of those success stories, it was the patient themselves that guided the journey to victory, with the doctor playing a supporting role but not a leadership role.>
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> >How many of them treat the poor. These docs have clinics that charge outrageous prices. So they offer medicine that few can afford.Two of the three that I saw take medicare, medicaid, and the State's program for the poor.
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> Quite right.You gotta shop around.
I've made several posts in this thread. It kind of got off track a bit. But to reiterate, my answer to the question "Is Becoming Med Free a Reality", my answer is the prognosis is very good but no guarantees. It is a different ballgame however. The rules are different. The patient plays a larger role than merely sitting in an office chair and letting someone behind the desk run their life.
It requires care for the entire body, not just the area where the symptoms are manifesting themselves. Because so often, those symptoms are coming from somewhere else in the body, not the site where they are actually seen. Detective work.
In the end, one or two supporting meds may still be needed, though doses and number of meds should be greatly reduced from where they were previously needed, aided by the intervention of the actual cause of symptoms, targeted specific supplements or plants, and strategically chosen food choices. If you or me were to add our names to the list of ones who won victory over the disease without meds, we would be the newest on a list of many thousands before us. It happens every day.
Each case is different.
poster:bleauberry
thread:921662
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20091021/msgs/922301.html