TIME INVOLVED: less than 5 minutes
Please take the short amount of time to voice your concerns for the future of chiropractic.
Step 1: Copy the template below.
Step 2: Find your senator and email them by CLICKING HERE.
That’s it!
Dear Senator ___________,
I am a licensed chiropractor in your state and I am a life-long chiropractic advocate. The purpose of my letter is to express my opposition to the recently submitted American Chiropractic Association (ACA) Medicare Coverage “Modernization” Act H.R. 3654.
This bill attempts to expand reimbursement to chiropractors to include everything within each state’s scope of practice and to expand the role of chiropractors to primary care physician status. More specifically, this scope expansion would make it permissible for the Doctor of Chiropractic to prescribe drugs and injectables in those states where the current and future scope of practice allows for it. In so doing, the traditional emphasis of chiropractic care in Medicare (the location, analysis and correction of vertebral subluxation) will be marginalized because the management of vertebral subluxation would no longer be required and chiropractors will become just another medical provider under Medicare. This will result in an unnecessary duplication of services and an increase in costs to taxpayers.
Further, the ACA Act does not address the inability of the chiropractor to opt out of Medicare (other healthcare professionals may opt out). This inability to opt out presents an inequity in the current system and leaves the Chiropractor at an unnecessary disadvantage when compared to the medical doctor, for example.
As a member of the International Federation of Chiropractors and Organizations (IFCO) I strongly oppose support of this Bill for a number of reasons, including the ones specified above. In addition, our opposition stems back to over a decade ago when the IFCO participated in the development and promotion of the Chiropractic Medicare Freedom and Benefit Protection Act. The IFCO joined a coalition of other organizations including the World Chiropractic Alliance and the International Chiropractors Association (ICA) to author a revolutionary Bill (H.R. 2560) that provided a definition of chiropractic that actually reflects what chiropractic is. The Bill was written by legislative staff from Representative Don Manzullo’s office, in collaboration with Christopher Kent DC, JD, President of the Foundation for Vertebral Subluxation.
H.R. 2560’s purpose was to prevent duplication of services between chiropractors and medical doctors, provide reimbursement for exams, diagnostic instrumentation and imaging related to the detection and correction of vertebral subluxation and to allow the Doctor of Chiropractic the ability to opt out of Medicare if they so choose.
The entire IFCO membership worldwide supports only those measures that address the above-stated concerns and therefore we are in complete opposition to this Bill that expands the scope of chiropractic practice, duplicates medical services and adds to taxpayer costs. Thank you for your consideration, and for listening to my concerns on this matter.
Sincerely,
Dr. __________
