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Orange County Chiropractic District
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Memorandum
to: ACA Board of Governors, House of Delegates and other interested parties In this
report: 1.
LAWSUIT UPDATE LAWSUIT
UPDATE While
there is nothing new to report on either lawsuit, I think you willagree that the
judge's decision in the Trigon suit two weeks ago, in which he allowed six of
our eight counts to move forward, was rather significant. UPDATE ON
FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR HCFA SUIT The
Nebraska Chiropractic Physicians Association has contributed an additional
$7,500 to the HCFA lawsuit, bringing its total to $30,000.
The Florida Chiropractic Association has contributed another $1,250
bringing its total to $13,750. Allied
Health of Wisconsin also made a contribution, bringing its total to $27,425.
First-time contributors to the lawsuit include the San Francisco District
of the California Chiropractic Association ($500) and the Tennessee Chiropractic
Association ($1000) ACA
BLASTS NATIONAL RADIO SHOW AND MAJOR MEN'S MAGAZINE ACA's
Media Relations staff has prepared and sent strongly-worded letters defending
the chiropractic profession to the Jim Rome Show, a nationally syndicated sports
radio show, and Maxim magazine, a popular men's magazine. Jim Rome
spent several minutes condemning chiropractic on the August 15 airing of his
radio program, while Maxim magazine ran an article full of misinformation about
chiropractic in its September 2001 issue. To
view these two ACA letters of response, as well as other recent ACA letters,
please click here: http://www.acatoday.com/media/letters/index.html. WELLNESS
COMMITTEE Researchers
from throughout the country and from Australia met in Kansas City recently to
develop a wellness model. The final
draft was prepared and routed to both the Core and Advisory subcommittees that
support the wellness campaign. ACA
governor Dr. George McClelland and Wellness Committee chair Dr. Ron Rupert of
Parker College, reported that there was excitement in the air upon arriving at
an initial draft. The document will now be submitted to the Board of Governors
and to the House of Delegates for approval. The ACA
was fortunate to have a wealth of knowledge and input from many sources into the
development of the document. An
advisory group made up of private-practice doctors and business leaders
evaluated the literature and provided comment prior to the core group's meeting
in Kansas City. The Core
Subcommittee of the ACA Wellness Committee includes: Dr. Ron Rupert, Director of
Research, Parker Chiropractic College, Dallas, TX; Dr. Ashley Cleveland,
Cleveland College of Chiropractic, Kansas City, MO; Dr. Meridel Gatterman,
Colorado College of Chiropractic, Denver, CO; Dr. Christine Goertz, ACA Research
Consultant; Dr. Cheryl Hawk, Palmer College of Chiropractic, Davenport, IA;
Patricia Jackson, vice president, ACA Office Professional Development and
Research; Dr. Jennifer Jamison, Professor of Diagnostic Sciences, Department of
Chiropractic, Osteopathy and Complimentary Sciences, RMIT, Australia; Dr. George
McClelland, ACA Board of Governors; Dr. Charles Sawyer, Northwestern Health
Sciences University; Dr. Timothy Wakefield, Allied Health, Wisconsin; Dr. Duane
Daniels, Parker Chiropractic College. The
Advisory Subcommittee of the ACA Wellness Committee includes: Derrick Gallion, Director of Complementary and Alternative
Medicine, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of South Carolina; Dr. Karen Konarski-Hart, ACA
delegate, chairman of ACA Committee on Public Health; Dr. Douglas Husbands,
Northridge, CA; Dr. Charles "Skip " Lantz, Life College of
Chiropractic, Roswell, GA; Dr. Robert Monokian, Virgin Islands; Dr. Juanee
Surprise, president, ACA Council on Nutrition; Dr. Michael Taylor D.C, ACA
delegate; Dr. Agostino Villani, Triad Healthcare Inc.; James Zechman,
Alternative Medicine, Inc.; Dr. John Triano, Texas Back Institute. THIRD
VETERANS ADMINISTRATION MEETING: MORE OF THE SAME The ACA
participated in the third and final meeting sponsored by the Department of
Veterans Affairs. Like the three previous meetings, Dr. Thomas Holohan, chief
medical director for the department spent the time criticizing the chiropractic
profession in front of the veterans groups who were invited to attend the
meeting. ACA was represented by Dr.
Rick McMichael, Jay Witter and Rick Miller. Dr.
McMichael did an excellent job in countering the VA comments. The other chiropractic groups present maintained a fairly
unified front, or in the case of the National Association of Chiropractic
Medicine, kept their comments to a minimum. The
Department of Veterans Affairs will be submitting a report to the Congress
regarding a new national policy on chiropractic care, which we believe will not
address important issues such as direct access, employment status for doctors of
chiropractic, or ensuring a full scope of practice. We anticipated this and have
already started to lobby members of Congress to introduce a pro- chiropractic
amendment to the Veterans Administration appropriation bill that will be
considered in September. Keep an
eye out for our legislative alerts on this issue. PAC EVENT
A SUCCESS The ACA-PAC
organized and attended a fundraising event for Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) in his
home district. Mr. Filner is a
ranking member of the Health Subcommittee of the VA Committee. The fundraiser
was a great success! The event, a
baseball game, offered local doctors time to spend with the congressman in a
private but informal setting at Qualcomm Stadium. The
event attracted 20 participants and raised over $9,000, with donations to this
chiropractic champion still coming into ACA headquarters. TRIANO
HIRED TO REVIEW MILLIMAN'S CHIROPRACTIC GUIDELINES Noted
chiropractic clinician John Triano, DC, PhD, has been hired by Milliman USA to
review its guidelines for chiropractic care. This
marks the first time that Milliman, a leading developer of health care treatment
guidelines in the U.S., has included a doctor of chiropractic on its
multidisciplinary review team. The
American Chiropractic Association (ACA) has been involved in discussions with
Milliman for almost a year regarding its chiropractic guidelines, which ACA
believed required updating. ACA
staff was instrumental in bringing Dr. Triano, a researcher and clinician with
the prestigious Texas Back Institute, and Milliman, together in hopes of
exposing the latter to new evidence of chiropractic's efficacy. ACA NEWS
AND FEATURE RELEASES CONTINUE TO MAKE WAVES IN THE MEDIA ACA and
chiropractic issues have been achieving great exposure in the mainstream media
as a result of news and feature releases prepared by Media Relations staff. For
proof of this, look no further than the ACA's media successes of the past month.
Here are some of the more
noteworthy examples that have taken place in the last 30 days: 1. The
Chicago Tribune ran a story titled "Baby on Board: Infants are not workout
tools, so beware when taking them along." The
article quotes the president of ACA's Council on Occupational Health Dr. Scott
Bautch extensively, and is the direct result of a release written by Media
Relations staff that ACA distributed earlier this summer. HOW DO WE
STACK UP WITH THE AMERICAN OSTEOPATHIC ASSOCIATION? American
Osteopathic Association (AOA) Members:
27,757 Employees: 143 Annual Budget: $8.7 million Hard-dollar PAC Contributions
for 1999-2000: $549,105 American
Chiropractic Association Members:
18,000 Employees: 40 Annual Budget: $6.5 million Hard-dollar PAC Contributions
for 1999-2000: $414,379 The AOA
is another competitor of our profession that made a point of submitting written
testimony at the Congressional hearing on Veterans Affairs last year, opposing
our efforts to expand chiropractic into the VA. Are
you still looking for a reason to join the ACA? Click
the following link to see what we have done lately for this profession. We
can't continue to do it alone. http://www.acatoday.com/about_aca/acadone.html SACA
CORNER On
Friday, August 17, Nicole Hewitt, SACA national chair visited the Colorado
College of Chiropractic. Nicole was
invited to address all the Friday morning classes. She
met with chiropractic students and is working with Dr. Keith Overland, CT
delegate and SACA Committee chair, on developing a strong SACA chapter at the
college. We are excited to report
that we have been successful in establishing a SACA chapter at Canadian Memorial
Chiropractic College. Sender
Deutsch, SACA chapter president of the new CMCC chapter, will attend the HOD
meeting next week. ONE LAST
TIME: SEE YOU IN FLORIDA Next week
(August 28th to September 1st) the ACA will hold its annual meeting at the
Renaissance Vinoy Resort in St. Petersburg, FL. Here
are some of the prominent speakers that will be on the program: 1. Dr.
Zonnya, First Lady of Motivation 2. Dr.
Alan Sokoloff, team doctor for the Baltimore Ravens 3. Dr.
Allan Korn, chief medical officer for National Blue Cross/Blue Shield 4. Mr. George McAndrews, chief litigant in the lawsuit against
the federal government and Trigon Blue Cross/Blue Shield. For more
details, contact the ACA office at (800) 986-4636. DELEGATES
IN ACTION ACA
Florida delegates Donald Krippendorf, DC, and John Gentile, DC, along with
George McClelland, DC, and Kathy Mills held the ACA flag at the recent Florida
Chiropractic Association convention. The
Florida Chiropractic Association was helpful in promoting the ACA by allowing
ACA material to be included in the registration packets received by doctors. There were about 2,000 people in attendance and our
representatives were given numerous opportunities to speak to the doctors in
attendance about ACA activities, and our legal action in particular. ACA
SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS 1. ACA
governor Daryl Wills, DC, participated in the Great Debate at the Palmer Lyceium
held recently in Davenport, IA, representing the ACA before an audience of over
300 doctors. |
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