Americans Spend $30 Billion a Year Out-of-Pocket on Complementary Health Approaches

NCCIH


How much did Americans spend on different types of complementary approaches? The survey showed that:

• Americans spent $14.7 billion out-of-pocket on visits to complementary practitioners. This is almost 30 percent of what they spent out-of-pocket on services by conventional physicians ($49.6 billion). They spent more on visits to complementary practitioners than on natural product supplements or self-care purchases (see below), and their mean annual out-of-pocket expenditure for practitioner visits was $433.
• Americans spent $12.8 billion out-of-pocket on natural product supplements, which was about one-quarter (24 percent) of what they spent out-of-pocket on prescription drugs ($54.1 billion). The mean annual out-of-pocket expenditure in this category was about $368.
• Total spending on purchases related to self-care approaches (for example, homeopathic medicines and self-help materials, such as books or CDs, related to complementary health topics) was $2.7 billion, and the mean annual out-of-pocket expenditure per user was $257.