Profile of a Profession: Naturopathic Practice - Center for the Health ...

UCSF Center for the Health Professions
• 96% indicated that home care education was excellent or good
• 92% indicated an excellent or good effect on lifestyle following NP care
• 68% reported that, following visits to a naturopathic physician, they were successfully caring
for conditions at home for which they would normally have visited a physician in the past
New modalities and therapies
Naturopathic medicine has a tradition of embracing new care modalities and therapies (see above for
coursework offered at universities and list of modalities and therapies included in AANP’s definition
of professional scope of practice for naturopathic physicians). The profession continues to find ways to
study and test value of the various therapies it includes in its scope of expertise.
Access to and cost of care
We found no studies regarding access to naturopathic medicine. However, one can estimate that
based on the relatively small size of the professional workforce (compared to other health care
professions), the limited number of states and provinces that permit naturopathic medicine to be
practiced to the full extent of the education and training of naturopathic physicians, and the lack
of or limited reimbursement from health plans and HMOs, access to naturopathic physicians is
extremely limited in the US and Canada. This is particularly true for areas beyond the Pacific
Northwest, where naturopathic physicians are concentrated.
Information on the costs of naturopathic medicine to consumers is extremely limited. In early
2000, The Integrator reported some findings based on a limited sample of profiling reports
prepared by Regence Blue Shield comparing naturopathic physicians credentialed as Primary
Care Providers (ND-PCPs) with other PCPs such as medical doctors (MDs). From the limited
sample, The Integrator reported that average cost of services billed by ND-PCPs were in the
highest quartile, non-evaluation and management costs by ND-PCPs were in the lowest quartile
and hospitalization costs of ND-PCPs were in the lowest third (The Integrator, 2000).
48 Chapter One: Naturopathic Medicine