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Homeopathy May Reduce Health-Care Costs 
 
NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa.--(BW HealthWire) via NewsEdge Corporation -- --
Physicians using homeopathy may help America cut health-care costs-- 

This possibility emerges from an article published in the November/December issue of the Archives of Family Medicine(1), which reported that physicians using homeopathy spent more time than the national average with each patient, but ordered fewer tests and prescribed fewer conventional medicines. 

The authors--Jennifer Jacobs, MD, MPH, Edward H. Chapman, MD, DHt, and Dean Crothers, MD --
also found that patients who see homeopathic physicians are younger, more affluent, and more likely to be seeking treatment for a chronic condition than those seen by a cross-section of general and family-practice physicians. 

The authors surveyed 27 physicians who specialize in homeopathy, soliciting information about their patients. They compared these findings with national statistics on patients treated by general and family-practice physicians. 
Their findings complement data published in France, where 40% of the physicians use homeopathic medicines in their daily practice. Their homeopathic prescriptions are covered by the government-backed health system. 

According to a 1991 report published by the French government, the total costs associated with homeopathic care per physician were about half those associated with conventional physicians. On a per patient basis, homeopathic care cost 15% less. 

Per-patient savings for homeopathic care were less dramatic than total savings because homeopathic physicians in France spend more time with each patient and therefore see significantly fewer patients. The French government also found that the longer a physician uses homeopathy, the more savings seen. 

A 1996 French report on prescription costs found that homeopathic medicines account for 5% of all medicines prescribed in France, though they represent only 1.2% of all drug reimbursements due to their lower cost per prescription. This report also noted that patients under the care of homeopathic physicians take many fewer sick days--3.5 times fewer--than those under the care of conventional general practitioners. 
"When our study is matched with French-government reports, we can see the possibility of remarkable cost-savings associated with the practice of homeopathy," says Jennifer Jacobs, MD, MPH, one of the authors of the Archives article. "This possibility is underscored by the fact that homeopathic physicians in America often treat chronic problems, such as allergies, arthritis, and digestive problems, which tend to be costly to treat in conventional ways." 

The popularity of homeopathy is increasing in the United States, according to an article in the Nov. 11 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The JAMA article reported that there had been a five-fold increase in the use of homeopathy in seven years. Of the adults responding to a survey, 3.4% used homeopathy in 1997, up from .7% in 1990. 

The study by Jacobs, Chapman and Crothers was funded by Boiron Research Foundation, which supports studies related to homeopathy at major research centers throughout the world, including at the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine under the National Institutes of Health, at the University of Washinghton, and at the University of California-UCLA. 

(1) Jennifer Jacobs, MD, MPH; Edward H. Chapman, MD, DHt; Dean Crothers, MD.: 
Patients Characteristics and Practice Patterns of Physicians Using 
Homeopathy. Archives of Family Medicine, 1998; 7: 537-540