IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v583y2002i1p64-75.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Paying for Alternative Medicine: The Role of Health Insurers

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Tillman

    (St. John's University)

Abstract

In the early 1990s, Americans spent an estimated $27 billion on alternative medical treatments. However, most of those expenditures were paid out of pocket rather than by health insurers. This article reviews empirical studies of third-party coverage of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and the factors behind the reluctance of health insurers to provide benefits for those treatments. This reluctance is based on three principal factors: a lack of scientific evidence supporting CAM providers' claims of medical efficacy, the absence of credentialing standards for many CAM providers, and difficulties in fitting CAM treatments into typological schemes that determine levels of reimbursement by health insurers. Possibilities for overcoming these obstacles to the integration of CAM into the American system of health insurance are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Tillman, 2002. "Paying for Alternative Medicine: The Role of Health Insurers," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 583(1), pages 64-75, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:583:y:2002:i:1:p:64-75
    DOI: 10.1177/000271620258300105
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/000271620258300105
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/000271620258300105?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:583:y:2002:i:1:p:64-75. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.