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BLOG: Do insurance companies reimburse for jokes?
The title of this post is not a joke, it was excerpted from a foreword by Francisco Contreras, MD, for the book, Healing through Humor, by Charles and Frances Hunter. Contreras’ 2-page foreword is a unique writing for a physician. Over the years, I have read a few books by physicians as well as many writings on humanity topics by physicians.
The foreword was very unique, the Hunters chose the best writer to introduce their book to the public. Contreras states in the foreword, “My father is the only physician I have met that would arrive at the hospital toting a guitar and a joke book.” Contreras talks about his father’s 60-year medical career which was marked by his winning the “Alternative Medicine Lifetime Achievement Award.” His father founded the Oasis of Hope Cancer Hospital in 1963 in Tijuana, Mexico and it is a center for integrative, alternative and total health care for patients with advanced cancer.
Contreras writes in the foreword that his father had founded the hospital “with the mission of improving the quality of the physical, emotional and spiritual lives of his patients.” His father’s “total-care approach included ministering to the patients’ bodies with nutrition, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals and physical therapy” as well as “nurturing the emotional and spiritual needs of his patients through counseling, music therapy, art therapy, prayer, hugs and laughter.”
I came across the book a few years ago when I spotted it at an airport. I read most of the book on that flight and now I always take a copy of the book with me while traveling. I keep a copy in the clinic and now and then use it with selected patients.
This book is unique, the authors are a pastor and his wife who stated that they spent a long time going through thousands of jokes over a long period of time and selected the best and cleanest jokes.
When I began practicing medicine I did not know the importance of using humor in certain situations. I thought I was equipped with all the scientific tools that are needed to treat and conquer diseases. Then, I realized that, while life is so stressful for all of us, why take life all too seriously all the time? Why not use humor, even in the exam room, with patients? About half-way into my medical career, I began using humor in my practice as appropriate. I believe that my patients appreciate it. It would be interesting to know what other physicians think of this approach.
Is there scientific proof that laughter and humor have health benefits? Contreras eloquently elaborated on this in his foreword, research has shown significant positive effects of laughter and humor on human health including the cardiovascular, metabolic and immune systems.
For example, in a study published in Diabetes Care, Japanese investigators studied the effect of laughter on glycemic changes in patients with type 2 diabetes. They enrolled 19 patients who were not on insulin who consumed meal with the same amount of calories and then on day 1 they attended a 40-minute monotonous lecture without humor content. On the next day, the experiment was repeated in the same patients, but instead of the lecture the patients attended a 40-minute Japanese cross-talk comedy called MANZAI. Intriguingly, postprandial blood glucose was lower after the comedy talk. The explanation was that laughter caused significant uptake of glucose by facial muscles.
Another example was the unique series presentation, “Don’t worry, be happy!,” at the European Society of Cardiology 2011 Congress in Paris, France. The series highlighted positive and negative emotions, job strain, laughter and music and health.
Back to the title of the post, Contreras writes in the foreword, “I do realize that insurance companies probably do not reimburse doctors for telling jokes, but who cares? As physicians, we should be willing to do whatever it takes to improve the health of our patients.”