Since this is getting a few notes I may as well attempt to head off one of the inevitable objections thatβll show up if this gets far enough.
βIf Chiropractic* doesnβt work, why does insurance cover it?β
Well, itβs very simple you see, insurance hates paying for things, and chiropractors are cheap as fuck.
Letβs say you injure your back scrubbing a toilet or something. You go to a real doctor, a good doctor who doesnβt blow you off. That doctor may tell you to take some Motrin and call them if it doesnβt get better, but they also might prescribe you a stronger anti-inflammatory, or a muscle relaxer. Your insurance has to pay out for the visit and the medicine.
Letβs say they do that and two weeks later your back still hurts. Your doctor orders an MRI. Your insurance now has to pay for an MRI, which can be a couple thousand dollars, well more than the premium youβve paid this month, which means theyβve lost money on you.
So youβre lucky and the MRI comes back that youβre okay but you need physical therapy. Thatβs another couple grand that your insurance has to pay out.
But maybe you werenβt lucky. Maybe the MRI comes back and you have a herniated disc. Youβre gonna need surgery and physical therapy, and now youβve not only cost them more than your premiums bring in in a year, youβve hit your annual maximum which means they have to pay everything from now on. They arenβt happy.
So letβs start back at the beginning. You injure your back, you instead go to a chiropractor. The chiropractor doesnβt have a decade of medical training, they have a certificate from a for-profit college that says theyβre a chiropractor. They charge your insurance for an office visit, crack your back a bit, and send you on your merry way.
You might feel better for a while, because the placebo effect is more powerful than you think. But even if you do feel better, thereβs still the chance that youβve got damage. You may still need physical therapy, you may still have a herniated disc.
But if you keep going back to that chiropractor, theyβre never gonna tell you that, and even if they do, itβll be after 2-3 sessions, so 6-8 weeks at a minimum, during which time youβre putting more wear and tear on that injury, and eventually, you have to go to a real doctor.
But hereβs where the magic happens. See, you injured your back in December. Now itβs February. Because your insurance put off sending you to a real doctor for two months, some actuary gets a big fat bonus for βreducing costsβ in quarter 4. Meanwhile, your real doctor orders an MRI that shows that the damage is, in fact, much worse than it probably was to begin with. And thereβs some evidence of injuries after the fact from the chiropractor. Oh, and by the way, thereβs a chance youβre gonna be in pain for the rest of your life even with surgery.
But hey, your insurance managed to post a profit in Q4.
* βChiropracticβ is the βofficialβ term for whatever the hell it is chiropractors do. I donβt respect it enough to use it unless Iβm mocking someone whoβs defending it.
