Herron, R. E., Hillis, S. L., Mandarino, J. V., Orme-Johnson, D. W., Walton, K. G.
This retrospective study evaluated whether government medical payments in Quebec were affected by the Transcendental Meditation® technique. Government payments for physicians? services were reviewed for the three years before and up to seven years after subjects started the technique. Payment data were adjusted for aging and year-specific variation (including inflation) using normative data. A volunteer group of 677 provincial health insurance enrollees from the Province of Quebec, Canada was evaluated. The subjects had chosen to practice TM before they selected to enter the study. The subjects (348 males, 329 females) had diverse occupations. Their ages averaging 38 years ranged from 18 to 71 at the start of TM. During the three years before starting TM, the adjusted payments to physicians for treating the subjects did not change significantly. After commencing TM practice, subjects' adjusted expenses declined significantly. The several methods used to assess the rate of decline gave estimates ranging from 5% to 7% annually. Because there was no separate control group; thus it is impossible to determine whether the changes were caused by TM practice or some other factor. The results suggest that Transcendental Meditation reduces government payments to physicians. However, because of the sampling method used, the generalizability of these results to wider populations could not be evaluated.
The University is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission • www.ncacihe.org
Maharishi University of Management • Fairfield, Iowa 52557 • (641) 472-7000
Office of Admissions: (800) 369-6480 or (641) 472-1110
Copyright and Service Mark Notice • Right to Know and Other Disclosures