Integrator Blog News & Reports

Integration, by nature, asks us to open our peripheral visions. We are served to look at the whole of the field. We need to develop new fascia, new connectivity. Opportunities crop up in new places. The Integrator Blog News and Reports is meant to provide you with information, insights and tools to enhance integrated care in the environment you serve.

- John Weeks, publisher-editor

Medicaid costs are soaring. States are hurting. Strains from pain-related conditions factor in heavily. Meantime, surging prescriptions of pain medications create new sets of adverse consequences. Can an integrated care program featuring licensed acupuncturists, massage therapists and holistically-oriented nurse managers be part of the solution? Since 2002, via legislation and a Medicaid waiver, the state of Florida has engaged an "Integrative Therapies Pilot Project" to answer these questions. Chicago-based Alternative Medicine Integration Group (AMI) won the contract. This Integrator Special Report looks at AMI's clinical integration and payment model, patient and practitioner experience, and clinical outcomes and controversies in the analysis of costs and cost-savings. Is this a model which Medicaid should widely promote? Part 1 of this 5-part exploration is an overview of issues and findings.
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Iowa Health Reform Poll: 68% of Voters Want Licensed CAM Professionals Covered in Basic Benefits

A broad-ranging survey on health reform topics by the Gilmore Research Group found that 68% of voters believe basic health care benefits should include coverage for any licensed health care professionals. Licensed professionals directly noted in the survey of 601 Iowa voters were "naturopathic physicians*, acupuncturists and chiropractors." The survey was commissioned by Code Blue Now!, a national, non-partisan, not-for-profit citizen organization formed to build public consensus in health care policy. The Iowa population was strategically selected to have a maximum influence on the healthcare reform debate.
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Understanding the "CAM Voter" - More from the CodeBlueNow! Poll of Iowa Voters

A recent poll on health reform issues commissioned by the non-partisan organization CodeBlueNow! found that 68% of Iowa voters favored inclusion of licensed CAM practitioners in basic benefits plans. The unusual inclusion of this complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) question in a broader reform survey created an opportunity to learn more about the opinions of the pro-CAM voter. How? One can examine "cross-tabulations" of outcomes on this question with outcomes of others. For example, are these voters aligned with investment in prevention? with a stronger role for the government? with employers in the driver's seat? with for universal coverage? Thanks to CodeBlueNow! we have an initial level of informed speculation.
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Guest Column: David Matteson on the Shared Destiny of Integrative Medicine and the Natural Products Industry

How connected is the growing natural products industry and the industry that is represented by the vast expansion of complementary, alternative, integrative and holistic practitioners? Does the public separate the two? Do elected officials? Are their destinies intertwined? What is the optimal relationship between these two entities? David Matteson, a consultant and strategic thinker with deep connections in both these universes, has given a good deal of thought to the "parallel play" of these two natural health care forces. His guest column opens an Integrator dialogue on the optimal relationship between these two entities.
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Guest Column: Managed CAM Executive Adrian Langford on Relations Between the Natural Products Industry and CAM Practitioners

A recent Integrator column by David Matteson opened a forum on the optimal relationship between the natural products industry and the practitioner organizations which represent those who use natural products in their treatment of patients. Matteson suggested that failure to more deeply ally closes off opportunities. Here, Adrian Langford probes into both the upside and downside of the potential. Langford is a 20-year managed care executive with the last decade in managing complementary and integrative health care networks. He is currently vice president for Alternative Medicine Integration Group of Florida, the firm responsible for the Medicaid pilot.
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Resources

Integrator Archive by Subject for January-June 2007
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Integrator Archive by Subject for 2006: All Hot-linked
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