"Used by more than a third of Americans, alternative medicine is slowly becoming accepted by the healthcare establishment.

A growing number of health insurers are recognizing this $30 billion industry, mostly by offering discounts for acupuncture, nutritional counseling, mind-body practices like biofeedback and other complementary or alternative forms of care."

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""Complementary medicine is going mainstream quickly,'' says Santiago Leon, a Miami health insurance broker who has studied the field extensively. ``Part of the impulse is therapeutic. Part of it is economic.''

Studies show some treatments -- particularly acupuncture and some mind-body therapies -- work as well or better than traditional medicine, and they are frequently much cheaper."