Speaker: Incorporate alternative medicine
Many family physicians are learning more about alternative medicine so they can communicate better with patients who are interested in the subject. At this year's Scientific Assembly, FPs heard from Donald Novey, M.D., of Park Ridge, Ill., whose large multi-specialty group went a step further, incorporating these therapies and providers in a controlled setting to improve coordination of care and better meet patient needs.
John Mitterling, AAFP Foundation director of development, left, and Bruce Steffens, M.D., of Moline, Ill., who serves on the foundation's board of trustees, chat at the foundation's booth outside the Congress of Delegates. They were offering three ways to support family practice through the foundation: Buy a brick to be used at the new headquarters for the AAFP and foundation, purchase greeting cards or buy an Assembly lapel pin.
Individuals, medical practices, chapters, foundations and corporations can get their names engraved on bricks for the Kansas City-area headquarters, scheduled to open in 1999. The greeting cards feature paintings by family physician A. Earl Mgebroff, M.D., of Yoakum, Texas. You may order bricks, cards or lapel pins by calling (800) 274-2237, Ext. 4462.
Novey, medical director of the Center for Complementary Medicine of Advocate Medical Group, spoke in the course on "Alternative/ Complementary Therapies and Providers: Responding to the Trend with a Sense of Sanity," a part of the Assembly's Managed Care and Practice Enhancement Forum.
Novey said he thinks of health care as a continuum of approaches, both complementary and traditional, and he offered these tips for FPs:
- Select from among traditional and alternative therapies depending on the urgency of a patient's condition. Many of the alternative therapies are ideal to get patients closer to a state of optimal physical health, he said, but they're less appropriate in urgent situations.
- Develop sound referral relationships with a constellation of alternative therapy providers, he said. When evaluating whom you will refer to, consider the experience and training of the available providers, find ones who will work within agreed-upon limits and establish close, trusting relationships with them.
- When referring out for alternative care, have a plan. What are the goals of the therapy? How long will it last? What will happen next if initial treatment fails?
- Alternative care providers should carry their own malpractice insurance. However, be careful regarding failure to identify and treat on your own part, Novey said.
- Communicating clearly with patients and establishing a strong physician-patient relationship is an important safeguard, Novey said. Patients who feel comfortable talking to you will likely let you know if they have concerns about the alternative treatment.
- Reimbursement is very plan-specific, so payment arrangements for alternative therapies should be made in advance.
Novey said the "big seven" among complementary/alternative therapies are: acupuncture, traditional Chinese herbal medicine, homeopathy, chiropractic care, massage therapy, western herbalism, and diet and nutrition therapy.
