Your Benefits Plan Should Always Meet Your Health Needs

Each year, Ontario businesses, unions and workers make difficult decisions about the kind of health care coverage they can afford. Each organization is unique and must determine its own priorities and needs, but in a changing economic landscape one often has to take an active role in shaping their own health care coverage.

If you are suffering from low back pain and other musculoskeletal disorders, you are not alone.

Low back pain affects 84 per cent of the working population1 and is second only to the common cold as a cause of lost work time^{2. Health Canada estimated that musculoskeletal disorders, including back pain, cost society $16.4 billion3 in combined direct (treatment and rehabilitation) and indirect (lost productivity) costs}

Chiropractic is not just good for you, it’s good for your employer.

Several reports4 have concluded that increased utilization of chiropractic care can reduce health care costs and contribute to improved productivity. Patients treated by a chiropractor for back pain returned to work sooner and had reduced rates of chronic problems, hospitalization and reduced the need for prescription drugs.

Despite the evidence, many benefits plans provide only limited coverage for services performed by a chiropractor.

As a patient and plan member, you can start a dialogue with your employer and/or your union to make them aware that chiropractic care is important to you and your insurance coverage.

1 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=9762743
2 http://www.euro.who.int/en/what-we-do/data-and-evidence/health-evidence-network-hen/publications/
hen-summaries-of-network-members-reports/what-is-the-best-way-to-treat-back-pain
3 http://www.ihe.ca/publications/health-db/geo/563/
4 See Supporting Research

-Ontario Chiropractic Association