Duke Univ Study Says Back Pain Costs US $90B/Year

In one of the largest analyses of its kind, a team of Duke University Medical Center researchers has found that patients suffering from back pain consume more that $90 billion annually in health-care expenses, with approximately $26 billion of that amount directly attributable to treating the back pain. The researchers said that their results not only demonstrate the enormous economic impact of back pain, but provide concrete data that policy makers and researchers can use in determining how health-care resources should be allocated. The Duke team mined data from the Medical Expenditure Pa...