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The Economic Costs of Lower Back Pain

© Dr. David L. Phillips

Most people, so-called experts included, dismiss lower back pain as a minor nuisance that passes through one's life briefly and without much consequence. Medicine has always viewed these pains as self-limiting and requiring little or no care, only some rest and a little time. We in the chiropractic profession and those third-party payors who foot the health care bills, such as workers compensation and health insurance agencies have long decried the severity and size of this universal trouble. Recently we have been dubiously vindicated. I say "dubiously", because really, who wants to be right about this? The fact is that the cost of lower back pain is ENORMOUS.

In a recent study published this month in the journal, Spine, a rather large analysis of statistics from the year 1998 was reviewed. These figures are all based on the state of affairs in the United States, but it is widely held that lower back stats are common to most countries of the Western World.

The study found that 80% of people suffer from low back pain sometime in their lives, at least once. Every year 20-40% of the population has back pain. And the costs are frightening.

Startlingly, the cost of back pain in the US is conservatively estimated to be upwards of 90 billion dollars. That's a lot of zeros. And, this figure does not take into consideration out-of-pocket expenses by individuals, costs of compensation benefits for loss time at work, nor costs associated with low back pain in nursing homes. To put some perspective on the nursing home thing, 20% of health care dollars are spent in those places. That's why the 90 billion figure is conservative. We could be looking at much, much more. Scary, eh? Especially for a problem that's considered to be "minor".

To add some more perspective, let's look at this term "a billion dollars". We all know that is a lot of money. We read it in the headlines and hear it on the news practically every day. Governments toss a billion dollars around as if it's lunch money. A billion here, a billion there, what's the difference? What, in practical terms, is a billion dollars?

A billion dollars is more than 10,000 dollars a day for 300 years! So in that light, I guess we can all agree that 90 billion spent on low back pain is staggering and is one of the larger expenses that are threatening to bring our health care systems to their knees.