In a recent CNN Money article it talked about  how much the average American family spends per year on healthcare.  It was $19393 per year.

How did we get to $19393?  Well considering the average family size in America is 2.59, that translates into $7487 per person.  I remember when we were at $4000 per person in 1999/2000.  So with inflation, I figure not too bad.

Wait!  That's real money.  Not to mention almost twice as much per capita as other countries.

The article continues to give us a breakdown as how much the employee vs. employer pays and how the dollars are spent.  This interesting part is, of $19,393 spent per year:

• 33% goes to Physicians or $6370 (numbers rounded to nearest dollar)
• 31% hospital in-patient costs or $6012
• 17% out-patient costs or $3297
• 15% pharmacy costs or $2909
• 4% DME/other costs or $776

Most people don't know about a couple of little known studies in the Chiropractic profession.  We call them the "AMI study".  In 1996 a HMO called Alternative Medicine, Inc. (AMI) eliminated the usual insurance "gatekeeper" method by restricting alternative therapies unless approved by a medical doctor.  The utilization findings where astonishing.  The utilization decreases ( leading to cost savings) were:

• 43 percent in hospital admissions per 1,000
• 58.4 percent in hospital days per 1,000
• 43.2 percent in outpatient surgeries and procedures
  per 1,000
• 51.8 percent in pharmaceutical costs

Three years later the study was done again and published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics (JMPT) in May 2007.  The results again show decreases of:

• 60.2 percent in hospital admissions per 1,000
• 59 percent in hospital days per 1,000
• 62 percent in outpatient surgeries and procedures per 1,000
• 85 percent in pharmaceutical costs

Let look at how this would influence healthcare dollars of $19,393 spent per family per year:

• 33% goes to Physicians or $6370
• 31% hospital in-patient costs or $6012  60% decrease = $2405. Saved $3607
• 17% out-patient costs or $3297  62% decrease=$1253. Saved $2044
• 15% pharmacy cost or $2909  85% decrease=$436. Saved $2473
• 4% Durable Medical Equip/other $776

Your total savings per year would be $8124 or 42%!