Owing to perceived additional costs, patients may avoid integrative health and medicine (IHM) treatments, while insurers may not cover IHM. We hypothesized that adult beneficiaries of a health system's employee insurance plan with musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions receiving covered outpatient IHM would have reduced total allowed costs over the 1-year follow-up compared with matched controls, secondarily exploring medical and pharmaceutical cost subsets. We queried medical records and claims spanning 2018-2023 for beneficiaries aged 18-89 years with a new MSK episode.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTrypanosoma cruzi is a vector-borne protozoan parasite that infects seven million individuals in Central and South America and is the etiologic agent of Chagas disease. There are increasing reports of endemic transmission within the southern US. Trypanosoma cruzi occurs in wild raccoons and dogs in Oklahoma, but its endemicity in the state is poorly studied.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF