Chiropractic News

NCLC Update

March 8, 2010, 1:22 pm

The 2010 National Chiropractic Legislative Conference and ACA’s mid-winter House of Delegate was held in Washington DC February 25-27.

The 2010 National Chiropractic Legislative Conference and ACA’s mid-winter House of Delegate was held in Washington DC February 25-27.  Attending from SD, in addition to me, were the SDCA President and his wife, Drs. Jim and Sheila Fitzgerald, SDCA Executive Director Katy Stulc, and Dr. Jay Fitzgerald and his wife, Kathy.  The session opened with featured speakers Richard “Dick” Gephardt and Brig. Gen. Becky Halsted (Ret.).  The Hon. Dick Gephardt is a past 20-year member of Congress from Missouri and past Speaker of the House of Representatives.  He now owns and is President of a consulting firm and is a lobbyist on Capitol Hill.  Mr. Gephardt has been hired by the ACA to assist in representing the chiropractic profession to members of Congress, the Obama administration, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA).  With his help, the ACA was able to schedule a high level meeting with of ACA Government Relations staff and CMS Secretary Sebelius in attendance that was very productive.  General Halsted is the 1st woman graduate of West Point to attain the rank of general and has been the highest ranking officer to date who has commanded troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq.  She is now a fantastic advocate chiropractic advocate in Washington and a spokesperson for F4CP.   We also heard from Rep. Bob Filner, Chairman of the House VA Committee, and from Senator Tom Harkin.  We were briefed by ACA Government Relation staff on the recent health care reform efforts that have been taking place in Washington this past year.  Ironically, we were meeting in our nation’s capital on the very same date that President Obama held his health care summit with leaders of both political parties just several blocks from where we were convened.    

 

Our visits to Capitol Hill went very well.  Our group, along with 2 SACA students from Northwestern Health Sciences University, personally met with Representative Herseth-Sandlin, Senator Tim Johnson and Senator John Thune and their health care aides on Thursday, February 25th.  The issues we discussed included the following (all of the issue briefs related to the following legislative issues are available on the ACA’s web site):

 

1.      The importance of including ESSENTIAL core chiropractic benefits in any national health care reform legislation and maintaining state consumer protection laws and antidiscrimination language (as included in the House and Senate passed health care bills on December 24 and earlier this year) in any final version of national health care reform legislation that may ultimately be passed by this Congress.  Also, the ACA believes there needs to be a paradigm shift from “Sickness care” to “Wellness care” with an emphasis on preventive health care services.

2.      The expansion of Medicare benefits to include “Full Scope” chiropractic services including E&M (examination), x-ray, and other physical medicine codes for therapeutic modalities and services.  The ACA has asked Secretary Sebelius to see if we might be able to get at least partial relief with her assistance through administrative and regulatory changes within CMS.  We will, of course, continue to pursue legislative relief on this obviously discriminatory policy but we might be able to move faster on this through administrative regulatory changes.  Watch for more on this in the weeks to come.

3.      Requested support to enact HR-484 (the Roger’s chiropractic TRICARE bill).  This legislation would finally provide chiropractic benefits to military dependents, retirees, and survivors in the military TRICARE system.  Congresswoman Herseth-Sandlin is currently a co-sponsor of this legislation.  Senators Johnson and Thune were urged to contact their colleagues on the Senate Armed Services Committee (of which Sen. Thune is a member) and work to incorporate a provision identical to the Rogers’ House bill into the Senate version of the FY 2011 National Defense Authorization Act or some other Senate bill.   

4.      Requested support to pass HR-1017, the “Chiropractic Care Available to All Veterans Act” in the House of Representatives and a companion bill in the Senate, S-1204 that would expand access to chiropractic care within the VA healthcare system by requiring all 138 DVA major military treatment facilities to fully implement chiropractic health care services in the next several years.  Currently, there are 39 DAV MTF’s that have chiropractic services available, including the VA Hospital in Sioux Falls.  Congresswoman Herseth-Sandlin also is a co-sponsor of this legislation in the House.  Senator Johnson verbally indicated that he would co-sponsor this legislation in the Senate.   

5.      Requested support to pass HR-2891, the “Access to Frontline Health Care Act 2009” supported by the ACA in conjunction with other healthcare trade associations.  This bill would allow a health care provider to practice in a Health Profession Shortage Area (HPSA) – which is a medically underserved region or community – in exchange for partial or complete student loan repayment.  None of the SD Congressional delegation is yet a sponsor on this legislation however Sen. Johnson said that he would support a companion bill in the Senate when it is introduced and Representative Herseth-Sandlin said that she generally supports these types of incentives for health care professional to help lower their student loan debt.

 

The ACA House of Delegates voted unanimously to rescind a previously passed resolution that encouraged and recommended the development of a national examination by the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners for those states that are pursuing or may already have “Advanced Practice” type state chiropractic licensure laws.  This issue came to light after some of the chiropractic publications reported a “tiered” chiropractic licensing law in New Mexico and Oklahoma that allows some DC’s to prescribe and/or inject some homeopathic remedies, natural hormones, herbs, and even some proprietary medications.  By the ACA’s definition of chiropractic, the ingestion of prescription drugs and natural hormones either orally or by injection is not within the scope of practice of the chiropractic profession.  The ACA’s interpretation is that each state is responsible in determining it’s own statutory laws and regulations.  However, with that being said, the ACA likes to think of itself as being the big tent under which all DC’s, even those with the most liberal that have a broad scope of practice as well as the most conservative who are philosophy or subluxation based DC’s, are represented and can coexist.

             

We listened to updates by the Foundation For Chiropractic Progress (F4CP), the Chiropractic Summit, the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners (NBCE), the World Federation of Chiropractic (WFC), the ACA-PAC, and the ACA Insurance Relations Department and ACA Legal Counsel among others.  Probably the most significant event that occurred this past year has been the extraordinary work of the ACA and its chief legal counsel, Mr. Tom Daly, in successfully reversing the ruling by national BCBS that doctors of chiropractic were no longer “physicians” in the Federal BCBS healthcare plan.  This victory was probably the most significant and important victory for the chiropractic profession in the past 25 years – since the victory in Wilk v. AMA in the late 1980’s – and will have profound effects on the chiropractic profession for many years and generations to come.  What a pumped up feeling I get when I come home from this great annual meeting!

 

Thanks to all of you who contributed to the ACA-PAC this past year and who recently purchased raffle tickets for the ACA-PAC raffle that was held in Washington this past week.  Unfortunately, none of the winners of the raffle prizes were from South Dakota.  Maybe next year?  Just to show you how big of a battle is being fought in Washington, the ACA-PAC raised a little over $300,000.00 in the 2007-08 election cycle.  During the same time, the AMA raised about 10 times that amount or $3,347,000.00.  The ADA (American Dental Association) raised $2,586,000.00.  The physical therapists raised and contributed $1,306.000.00 to their “friends” in Congress – or nearly 4 times as much as the ACA-PAC.  So, . . . next time someone from the ACA-PAC calls you on the phone or solicits your contribution via mail or e-mail, or when I ask you for a donation to the ACA-PAC, keep these numbers in mind.  Try to help the PAC.  We can and we will do better – both in South Dakota and nationally – this next election cycle.  With your help, we can make it happen.

 

The ACA has developed and is making available to all DC’s a Medicare Documentation continuing education program that may be eligible for 2 hours of CE that will be entirely free of charge.  You can find more information on this on the ACA’s website at www.acatoday.org.  I will be working with the SD Board of Chiropractic Examiners to see if we can get CE credits for this course in South Dakota.

 

Please keep in mind that the ACA remains your “practice insurance” and is always ready and able to stand toe-to-toe and defend against those who would like to eliminate chiropractors and the chiropractic profession from the health care delivery system in the United States . . . and defend your right to practice and fight for the rights of your patients to receive essential chiropractic care.  You would all be so very proud if you could only see what Dr. Fitzgerald and Katy Stulc and I have seen in the quality of the men and women who make up the leadership of the ACA and the House of Delegates . . . and the extremely competent, talented, and committed ACA staff!  Thanks to all of you we have them working for us! 

 

Please make sure to attend the SDCA Spring Conference in Sioux Falls.  I will have an ACA booth in the exhibitors area of the conference facility.  ACA President Rick McMichael will be our guest and our Doctors’ Luncheon speaker.  He will have much to tell you and I’m sure he would welcome your questions.  When you are in Sioux Falls in April, I would enjoy visiting with you and hearing from any of your comments, complaints, or suggestions.   Please take the time to introduce yourself to me and to Dr. McMichael at Spring Conference and help me extend to him and his wife our warm South Dakota hospitality.  See you there!

 

Tom Ivey, DC, FICC

ACA Delegate (SD)

 

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