Provider Attitudes Regarding Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine: A Qualitative Study

Context: Currently, only 43% of doctors of osteopathic medicine (DOs) nationwide offer osteopathic manipulative treatments (OMT), with half of them providing OMT to ≤5% of their patients. At Mayo Clinic and Mayo Clinic Health Systems (MCHS), merely 28% of DO providers perform OMT, leading to long wait times of over three months for new patients seeking OMT referrals.

Objective: This study investigates provider attitudes toward OMT and identifies barriers to referrals to address the unmet patient demand.

Study Design and Analysis: Osteopathic physicians from Mayo Clinic and MCHS were surveyed for willingness to be interviewed about their OMT attitudes and experiences. Interviews were conducted over Zoom, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using thematic analysis to identify key themes and subthemes.

Results: Of the 27 volunteers, 17 completed interviews, revealing six key themes: resources, capability, attitudes and beliefs, systems, utility, and training. These themes, supported by direct quotes from the transcripts, highlighted various subthemes.

Conclusions: Physicians recognize the value of OMT but face challenges integrating it into routine care, especially in non-primary treatment specialties. Time constraints, scheduling difficulties, limited referral options, and patient awareness hinder OMT incorporation. Systemic barriers like patient panel management and practice autonomy also impede OMT implementation. Addressing these challenges requires streamlining scheduling processes, enhancing physician training and referral networks, increasing patient education and awareness, advocating for practice integration, and empowering physician autonomy. Overcoming barriers to OMT use and promoting its integration into mainstream healthcare can significantly improve patient access to this valuable treatment modality.