This is not to be dismissed out of hand?

Does "This is not to be dismissed out of hand" mean "the possibility of faith-healing is not to be denied immediately"?

Context:

DIRECT ADVANTAGES OF RELIGION
There is a little evidence that religious belief protects people from
stress-related diseases. The evidence is not strong, but it would not
be surprising if it were true, for the same kind of reason as faith-
healing might turn out to work in a few cases. I wish it were not
necessary to add that such beneficial effects in no way boost the
truth value of religion's claims. In George Bernard Shaw's words,
'The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the
point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.'
Part of what a doctor can give a patient is consolation and re-
assurance. This is not to be dismissed out of hand. My doctor
doesn't literally practise faith-healing by laying on of hands. But
many's the time I've been instantly 'cured' of some minor ailment
by a reassuring voice from an intelligent face surmounting a
stethoscope. The placebo effect is well documented and not even
very mysterious. Dummy pills, with no pharmacological activity at
all, demonstrably improve health. That is why double-blind drug
trials must use placebos as controls. It's why homoeopathic
remedies appear to work, even though they are so dilute that they
have the same amount of active ingredient as the placebo control -
zero molecules. Incidentally, an unfortunate by-product of the
encroachment by lawyers on doctors' territory is that doctors are
now afraid to prescribe placebos in normal practice. Or