Andrew Orlander: The Real Story

In 2001, Andrew Orlander’s stellar career as one of the most successful chiropractors in the country was harshly challenged when he faced health care charges due to the actions of two company employees at that time.

After 15 years of practice, Andrew Orlander had built one of the most successful MD-DC (medical doctor-chiropractor) practices in NY, with 15 locations, staff of 335, which included 15 full-time medical doctors, 40 physical therapists and 30 chiropractors; the multi-specialty chain of offices treated over 6,000 patient visits a week and generated over $20 million in annual revenues.  In addition to his string of practices, Andrew founded a consulting company, Success Systems Management, which within 3 years boasted over 350 chiropractors under management, generated $2 million in revenues and was quickly bought out by its largest competitor, Markson Management Services.

How is it possible that with all this success, Andrew’s career faced a challenge of such huge proportion?

US Accounts for Forty-Five Percent of Worldwide Pharmaceutical Spending

A recently released study of per capita spending on pharmaceuticals reveals that the US spends more than any other major industrialized nation, nearly twice the average amount of the 30 countries included in the assessment. In addition, we spend an average of 30% more for the same drugs.

The report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) finds that the average OECD country spent $401 per person on drugs in 2005, and half of OECD countries had per capita spending within 20 percent of the average. The US had the highest level of per capita expenditure, at $792 and Mexico the lowest, at $144 just 18 percent of the US amount.

Facing Chronic Pain Without Drugs

(CNN) – For two years after a hip surgery that didn’t work out as well as he’d hoped, pain shot down Jim Heckler’s leg like electrical shocks. Several doctors, eager to help Heckler feel better, prescribed various narcotic painkillers.

“I was taking whatever they gave me,” says Heckler, a 47-year-old businessman.

His doctors were fine with Heckler taking narcotics long-term, but Heckler wasn’t. He sought out Dr. Vijay Vad, a sports medicine specialist at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan, where Heckler lives, in hopes of finding a different approach.

Vad suggested Heckler get off the narcotics as soon as possible, lose weight, do back exercises, take up yoga, ride a bike, ice frequently and take fish oil, glucosamine and chondroitin supplements.

Heckler dropped from 240 to 208 pounds, did the exercises, took the supplements and while the pain has never gone away, he says it’s now tolerable enough that he doesn’t have to take painkillers.

Heckler’s experience raises a question hotly debated among doctors: Should patients to take narcotic painkillers long term? The answer has never been more important, as a new Institute of Medicine report says 116 million Americans adults have chronic pain, a number larger than many previous estimates.