With absolutely no ulterior motive I would sincerely like experienced classical prescribers to share what their cure rates are for classical prescriptions.

I am not interested in definitions of cure, define that as you understand it. Also define other terms as you understand them. I am only interested in classical prescribers results, i.e. in results form SINGLE REMEDY prescriptions (not concerned whether it is X, C, LM potency or about frequency)
I am NOT interested in results for potentised remedies and other ethodologies overall whether classified as homeopathy or not.

Whether this is done anonymously or not I don't care. It doesn't need to be accurate to the tenth decimal point - I just want honest estimations, it doesn't have to be an audit - just an honest and genuine approximation (not just wishful thinking) from one's own practice. (I will reply to this to get the ball rolling) (as an example Jeremy Scherr said at a SOH conference I went to, that 'if we're honest we get about 50% cure rate' - do you agree or disagree? - please explain why you agree or disagree)

Please feel free to add explanatory notes e.g. 'total cure is same as presenting symptoms in some or all cases'
---------------------------------------------

Please state:
- the rate of total cure from FIRST prescription (i.e no other remedy was required to complete cure):
- - the rate of cure of presenting symptoms from FIRST prescription (i.e other remedies were or might be required to complete cure, but remedy had definite cleared presenting symptoms ):
- - - - the rate of cure of some symptoms from FIRST prescription (i.e other remedies were or might be required to complete cure, but remedy had definite cleared some important symptoms )(may or may not be same as above):

- the rate of total cure from full course of treatment (i.e. from first to last appointment one year max gap between appointments, whether more than one remedy was needed or not):
- - the rate of cure of presenting symptoms from full course of treatment (i.e other remedies were required to complete clearing of presenting symptoms ):
- - - - the rate of cure of some symptoms from full course of treatment (i.e other remedies were required to clear some important presenting symptoms, but others remain):

- Rate of partial cure summary; include patients that need ongoing supportive treatment:
- Rate of complete failure to address any of the patients symptoms to the satisfaction of the patient:

Do you screen your patients before accepting them for treatment?:
Do you treat acutes?:

What percentage of your prescriptions are 'classical' i.e. what percentage of your patients recieve other methodologies, other than single remedy, to enable potentised remedies to help?:

thanks

SK

> Please state:
> - the rate of total cure from FIRST prescription (i.e no other remedy was required to complete cure):
25%

> - - the rate of cure of presenting symptoms from FIRST prescription (i.e other remedies were or might be required to complete cure, but remedy had definite cleared presenting symptoms ):
50%
(higher % for chronics where there is plenty of time to consider Rx,
lower for acutes which may include flu etc. so above is average)

> - - - - the rate of cure of some symptoms from FIRST prescription (i.e other remedies were or might be required to complete cure, but remedy had definite cleared some important symptoms )(may or may not be same as above):
50%


> - the rate of total cure from full course of treatment (i.e. from first to last appointment one year max gap between appointments, whether more than one remedy was needed or not):
70%

> - - the rate of cure of presenting symptoms from full course of treatment (i.e other remedies were required to complete clearing of presenting symptoms ):
80%

> - - - - the rate of cure of some symptoms from full course of treatment (i.e other remedies were required to clear some important presenting symptoms, but others remain):
99%

> - Rate of partial cure summary; include patients that need ongoing supportive treatment:
99%

> - Rate of complete failure to address any of the patients symptoms to the satisfaction of the patient:
1%

> Do you screen your patients before accepting them for treatment?:
NO

> Do you treat acutes?:
YES

> What percentage of your prescriptions are 'classical' i.e. what percentage of your patients recieve other methodologies, other than single remedy, to enable potentised remedies to help?:
70% single Rx prescriptions
Note: Px on lots of medication, or addictions etc. may receive different remedies throughout day, including Flower remedies, detox regimes etc.


SK

Rates seem pretty reasonable to me . Perehaps slightly better than my own.

I present, below, the write up I did for "Homeopathy NewZ" about the presentation Gwyneth Evans did at the NZCH annual meeting last year. This was the result of an audit of her practice. The Total cure on the first rx was NOT part of the audit, and so most of what Simon is asking for cannot be answered by THIS audit. Much else can. The pts are NOT screened. She DOES treat acutes, but most of those audited were chronic cases. ALL the cases were treated with a single remedy although the remedies changed over time with pts who had been seeing her for an extended period of time.

I do have a copy of her whole paper as presented. The facts are as below. If anyone wants the FULL paper, write to me privately. It is about 19kb.

JW

***

From: julian winston <jwinston@actrix.gen.nz>
Subject: gwyneth's report

The Sunday session was opened by Gwyneth Evans, RCHom. who spoke about her recent audit of her own practice. Gwyneth said that in the past she never had the courage to delve closely into how "good" her practice is. "Generally I think I'm doing OK, then on bad days I think I'm not!"

"It is easy to say that it must be OK because people keep coming to see me, but I well remember Patrick Derham saying to me a long time ago, that one could have a busy practice and not be any good, in the sense of having a good success rate." With the help of two Wellington College grads, Gwyneth entered into a data base about half of the clients she has seen in the last 4 years-- about 350 people. These were databased as to age, complaint, success rate, number of visits, remedies and potencies used, and a few other criteria.

As far as results/success rate, she decided to use a scale of 0-10 with 0 being no help at all and 10 being "cure" or great result. Of the 350 patients, 71% (250) were female. As for ages, about a quarter were from infants to 10, another quarter were from 11 to 19, another quarter from 30- 39 and the rest over 40. Of the 350 cases, 100 of them only came once. Gwyneth commented that she discussed this with another therapist and while Gwyneth said that 29% do not return, her friend commented that over 70% did return, and that was a good result!

About 19% of the patients had been in the practice since before 1996. When looking at the "top ten remedies used" it is not surprising to see mostly polychrests although Gwyneth confided that she didn't think she used Sulphur much, but it was her third most prescribed remedy. All in all, 169 different remedies were used in a range of potencies-- a small slice of the possible homeopathic armamentarium. To counter that, she mentioned that she had had excellent results (9 or 10) when using some smaller remedies like Europium-oxydatum and Praesodynium-carbonicum.

Gwyneth outlined the kinds of complaints she sees and commented that hers is truly a "general practice." As for her overall success rate... the worst piece was the number of "unknown result"-- 28% of the cases-- generally because the patient never returned.

Of the 240 cases of which a result was recorded, 62% have an 8 or more, 72% have a 7 or more, and 82% have a 6 or more. The results of all this? Gwyneth summed it up:
* Though hard work it was worthwhile.
* It will lead to my being much clearer in the way that I record case notes, making it easier to audit in the future.
* I have made a commitment to following up on patients more conscientiously.
* I have found the truth, the facts, instead of my inaccurate assumptions.
* Now I can truthfully say, with proof, what my success rate has been. I can look to improve it in the future.

What Gwyneth has done should be done by ALL practitioners. How else, except through such data, can we justify ourselves to governmental regulatory agencies and insurance companies?

Hi JW,

Great. I have been waiting for something like this to happen and also been posting about it off and on. Same goes for Simon.

Just one question (it may be answered in the paper)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Julian With the help of two Wellington College grads, Gwyneth entered into a data base about half of the clients she has seen in the last 4 years-- about 350 people.

On what base were they selected out of the 700?

Regards

Luise

many thanks for that Julian
:-)

SK

I have to say I am surprised to have so little response to my question. I did state that it didn't have to be more than an estimate. Am I to surmise that practitioners (of which there must be many on the lists) are too embarrassed about their success rates ( or lack of them) to answer?

Surely practitioners have SOME idea of the success of their treatments?

SK

Hi Simon,

This has been my experience before and also that of (at least) 2 other people during I guess the last 10 years. I had hoped it would turn out differently this time.

Maybe this is helpful - if only a little. There was in the net some years ago the site of a German or Austrian homeopathic practice/clinic, or rather several practitioners in on building.

The had an article or statement that they figured the overall success rate as approx. 50%. It was not broken down.

If you should get private responses, could you let us know the averages of each of your rubrics?

Regards

Luise

No private responses so far, If anyone wants to email me privately with a response - I promise absolutely that it will remain confidential - I am just curious to understand this complete lack of response! Not that I expected a show of bravado, but surely the singing of homeopathy's praises so loudly to all and sundry yet silence (apart from one or two excuses about it being too hard, complicated, difficult to define etc.) about the actual success rates doesn't make sense?

SK

Actually, Simon, it makes a lot of sense, as you are asking about cure rates ...so how do we define this?

Let me take a shot at it.

Do I call call a cure the disappearance of all symptoms and signs the patient came in for? Especially in acute cases or in exacerbation, flare-up of chronic cases? then I would "guesstimate" that my rate of cure is about 70% at first visit climbing to 85% after the third visit if need be (OK, I might be bragging and be highly delusional here, but it IS an estimate, an impression)...

When talking about chronic cases, how do I estimate their cure rate? often their symptoms disappear, they are happy, than a few weeks/months later, a deeper layer appears, but how long do I wait to see IF there will be another layer???

How about the patients you do not see any more?? are they cured, dead or so pissed off that they do not want to communicate any more?

When I was a surgeon, it was easy: a patient doing better after surgery than before was cured.

When I was in general practice, it was easy: a patient whose symptoms have disappeared was cured.

The basic way we practice in natural medicine, trying to get to the bottom of issues and not suppress, palliate or just barely relieve makes it almost impossible to answer your question.


Dr. J. Rozencwajg, MD, PhD.
"The greatest enemy of any science is a closed mind"