We’ve been treating back pain in our San Antonio spine clinic for several years now, and one thing is for certain:  chronic back pain is incredibly common and due to the failure of the typical treatments, a large number of people are living in pain needlessly.

While the most commonly-used back pain treatments have a high failure rate, new advancements in treatment are getting excellent results even for patients who have been suffering for many years without relief.

One of the most dramatic back pain breakthroughs we’ve seen in our San Antonio, Texas office is  spinal decompression.  Spinal decompression is a technologically advanced form of spinal traction that reduces spinal disc bulging, enhances disc hydration and nutrition, and mobilizes spinal joints and connective tissue.  For properly-selected patients, the results are often nothing short of amazing.

Unfortunately, spinal decompression remains underutilized as a back pain treatment for a couple of reasons.  First, the early marketing for spinal decompression was often hype-filled and factually inaccurate.  Although decompression is statistically the most effective treatment currently available for most serious types of back pain, the early marketing for it promoted it as a panacea for all back pain sufferers.  Spinal decompression does enjoy an excellent success rate, but it is not effective in every patient and it is simply not appropriate for every back pain sufferer.

The other reason that spinal decompression continues to  be underutilized for treating back pain is due to the overall system of health care delivery. All new health care procedures face similar challenges in the United States.

Basically, insurance companies usually refuse coverage for health care procedures that do not have an established procedure code.  In the U.S., the American Medical Association is responsible for producing the procedure codes, but they don’t make new codes until there are reasonably high numbers of doctors utilizing a given new procedure. Doctors are usually reluctant to invest the money in the equipment and/or training necessary to provide one of these new treatments unless they know they will be reimbursed for the treatment by health insurance companies.  This brings us full-circle to the insurance companies not covering procedures that don’t have an established procedure code. Because of this system, most new medical treatments are not widely used for several years until consumer demand gradually pushes more doctors to start providing the treatment. 

Because of the lack of insurance coverage for spinal decompression, many of the back pain patients we consult with at our san antonio spinal decompression clinic will opt to first pursue other treatment modalities that are covered by their insurance.  Sadly, many of these patients go for months or years in pain, spending many thousands of dollars in insurance co-pays and deductibles on the standard back pain treatments without any results to show for it.

Some of these back pain sufferers eventually undergo surgery hoping for a cure for their symptoms.   About half of the patients who do seek a surgical treatment for their back pain find out that the surgery either does not help or makes things worse.

While spinal decompression is far from 100% successful, it does get good to excellent results for the vast majority of back pain patients.  Ironically, although some patients we’ve consulted with have opted to go the surgery route because they think it will be less expensive due to it being covered by insurance, most back surgeries wind up being more expensive to the patient than spinal decompression.

Many back pain patients don’t realize in advance that the co-payments for a high-priced medical procedure like back surgery will usually run several thousand dollars.  With no insurance coverage at all, spinal decompression typically costs the patient less out of pocket than an average back surgery (if they are paying an insurance co-payment of 10% or more), and a lot less than a complicated back surgery.

  In most cases, spinal decompression is statistically the most effective treatment available and in the long-run is also usually the most cost-effective treatment available.

Dr. Michael Golab, D.C. and Dr. Ronald Fielden, D.C. are the treating doctors at South Texas Non Surgical Spinal Center.  Visit their website for more about spinal decompression and their San Antonio back pain treatment program.

 

 

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