Medicaid For Chiropractic Care - How To Avail Of It

The Department Of Human Health And Services has the responsibility of providing sufficient medical coverage to the citizens. This can be a difficult matter, since a large number of people consider several fields in medical science as either unreliable or as an outright fraud. These individual outlooks affect recognition and coverage of particular branches of medical science, under Medicaid.

At present, thirty US states recognise chiropractic care as legitimate and eligible for coverage under Medicaid, through a fee for service arrangement. As chiropractic care is gaining better recognition and legitimacy with each passing day, eventually it may get coverage under Medicaid in all the fifty states.

Among the thirty states that do cover Medicaid for chiropractic care, twenty-six provide assistance to all patients eligible under Medicaid, while twenty states also cover those who require financial assistance even though they are not eligible. Twenty states give repayment for chiropractic care to treat spinal subluxation. Only eight states cover all types of chiropractic care if considered medically essential.

All the thirty states provide Medicaid coverage for children. Any early signs of scoliosis can be treated with chiropractic care under Medicaid so that it does not become a disability when the person reaches adulthood.

Chiropractic care covered by Medicaid does have limitation on the number and frequency, in twenty-six states. While some states may limit it to once each day, others may allow it only once a year. Some states even limit the duration of the treatment, in effect leaving the patient to cover the bill themselves, halfway through the treatment.

The US Department of Health and Human Services mistrusts chiropractic care's ability to deliver treatment that is both reliable and cost-effective, to the extent that some state employees put the blame for increasing cost of Medicaid on chiropractors, by giving the example of large sums of Medicaid funds having found their way to chiropractic care in the 1990s. However, as chiropractic care gained acceptance and prominence in the 1990s decade, it stands to reason that more money would have been spent on the same. The department's employees ignore the fact that simultaneously, lesser funds were spent on other forms of treatment.

Research has shown chiropractic care to be efficient in delivering better medical results as well as in cost comparison. This kind of research however does not have an impact on the politicians, who make the ultimate decisions, so the practice of chiropractic care is either completely uncovered or insufficiently covered under Medicaid, in more than half of the US.

You have to be really fortunate to be living in a state that provides complete coverage of chiropractic care under the Medicaid program. Else, footing your own medical bills or private insurance may be the only recourse.