Integrator Blog News & Reports

Integration, by nature, asks us to open our peripheral visions. We are served to look at the whole of the field. We need to develop new fascia, new connectivity. Opportunities crop up in new places. The Integrator Blog News and Reports is meant to provide you with information, insights and tools to enhance integrated care in the environment you serve.

- John Weeks, publisher-editor    

October 13, 2006

Is NIH NCCAM Sailing into a Perfect Storm? (article)
The NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), forced on the NIH by the US Congress in 1998, has always been viewed as a kind of bastard step-child by the old-line NIH establishment. Now a Congressionally-mandated re-shaping of NIH, federal budget pressures, a series of negative results and antagonistic editorials in Science, and the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, one may see, in the distance the signs of a perfect storm.

Insurance Leaders on 3rd Party Payment, the CPT, and CAM-IM Maturation (article)
What does taking 3rd party payment change in a clinical practice? What role does such payment play in the development of a healthcare profession? Agostino Villani, DC, a long-time chiropractic leader and CEO of Integrator sponsor Triad Healthcare, provided a wonderfully frank assessment in an earlier Integrator article. Villani focused on some of the corruptive pressures. This article looks at views of two insurance-savvy leaders of the naturopathic medical profession, Kevin Wilson, ND, and Bruce Milliman, ND, who read Villani's comments and reflected on their own views. These are their remarks, and Villani's responses. This article is part of a sponsored series on the Future of Yoga Therapy from the International Association of Yoga Therapists.

Pelletier-Weil Program Has Major Employers Exploring Integrative Medicine Approaches (article)
Kenneth R. Pelletier, PhD, MD(hc) and his Corporate Health Improvement Program (CHIP), which involves over a dozen of the nation's largest employers, is focusing its research and clinical programs on prevention and disease management "using an integrative medicine approach." Outcomes of the multi-year project will focus on both clinical and cost-effectiveness. CHIP's development since 1984, and the list of areas of potential exploration, are lessons in understanding the large employer as an integrated care partner.

Integrated Healthcare Policy Consortium (IHPC): Leadership in National Action (article)
Since 1997, individuals currently leading the multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder Integrated Healthcare Policy Consortium (IHPC) have taken the lead in a series of national policy actions regarding integrated healthcare. Among these are pushing for the creation of NIH NCCAM, convening national policy and national education dialogues to advance integrated health care, and incubating a new CAM educator consortium. According to board chair, Sheila Quinn, IHPC is poised to play a growing role in promoting policy that can help transform US health care.

CAM Disciplines Data: Licensed NDs Double in 5 Years; Massage Use Doubles in 10 Years (article)
An academic study by some medical geographers shows the significant growth, nationally, of natural health care's smallest licensed profession - naturopathic medicine, plus state by state activity. And the American Massage Therapy Association takes advantage of its 10th year of consumer surveys to see how much consumer use of, and perspective about, massage has changed. A special AMTA focus on Generations X & Y ...

The Integrator is made possible through the generosity of sponsorships from NCMIC, Triad Healthcare, Standard Process, and Alternative Medicine Integration Group.