Major League Baseball has been analyzing data, called Sabermetrics, since the middle of the 20th Century. All year long, even in the off-season, baseball people are looking at data in order to determine a variety of scenarios that will help them get the best outcomes (wins). It’s gotten so crazy that there’s now a strategy called a “shift,” in which some of the infielders and outfielders shift more toward one side of the field because the data tells them that the hitter hits the ball to that side of the field a certain percentage of the time.
In healthcare, there’s been a “shift” toward evidence-based healthcare. According to Official Disability Guidelines (ODG), the problem with evidence-based medicine (EBM) is that there is not enough of it. According to an Executive Summary from ODG, “randomized, double-blind, placebo-control clinical trials (RCTs), and meta-analysis of those trials are costly and time-consuming. They do not exist for many routine, low-cost interventions with little incentive to perform the study.”
How does this apply to chiropractic? Rather than thinking about “evidence-based” chiropractic, let’s consider “outcomes-based” chiropractic. In fact, the entire healthcare system has begun a massive transition towards value-based care, in which health care systems will be rewarded not by how much treatment they provide, but how well it works. The beauty of this is…chiropractic works great.
We just need to SHOW it works great. Don’t think of “outcomes-based” chiropractic as just an insurance thing, although it’s what ALL of the payors want. Instead, think of it as a way that we can finally SHOW the world how effective our treatment really is. We can accomplish this EASILY, by documenting certain metrics with regards to our patient care. For which metrics do we need focus? Believe it or not, Medicare answers that for us. They require that we keep track of just TWO things: Pain and Function. All of the payors want to see improvement in Pain and Function. Even our patients want to experience improvement in Pain and Function. We’re already doing it.
Now let’s document it.
Gregg Friedman, DC, CCSP, FIACA
Creator of The Bulletproof Chiro EMR
