Physician Exec. 1998 Nov-Dec; 24(6): 16-21.

Complementary and alternative medicine. The daunting challenge.

Brown E.

Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Chicago, IL, USA. [email protected]

There is no question that the past few years have seen a tremendous surge in interest in what has come to be known as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Health plans contemplating adding CAM benefits face a daunting challenge. How should a plan define CAM benefits? How should a plan define appropriate CAM providers? How can these benefits be managed? Will the addition of CAM benefits undermine coverage policies for conventional biomedicine? The answer to these questions lies largely in uncharted waters, as even CAM advocates will agree that many alternative therapies (even those like Oriental medicine which has been in practice for some 5,000 years) have not yet undergone the type of rigorous, evidence-based analysis that is required to validate conventional biomedicine. This article explores options for CAM benefit design by considering two basic approaches-creating an uninsured benefit or insured benefit.