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Orange County Chiropractic District
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Memorandum to: ACA Members, Board of Governors, House of
Delegates and Other Interested Parties In this week's report: 1. MORE FROM THE TRIGON BATTLEFRONT 2. UPDATE ON THE HHS LAWSUIT 3. NCLC 2002: THIS WEEK 4. ACA CORRESPONDS WITH STATE MEDICAL BOARDS AND OTHERS 5. EVP ADVISORY COMMITTEE 6. PDR AND PENNSYLVANIA CHIROPRACTIC ASSOCIATION: COOPERATION HAS POSITIVE IMPACT 7. CHIROPRACTIC RELIEF DURING PREGNANCY 8. THE VETERANS ADMINISTRATION CAN'T HELP THEMSELVES 9. HIPAA FRAUD ALERT 10. NEW OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT: 2002 ASSESSMENT UPGRADE NOW AVAILABLE 1. MORE FROM THE TRIGON BATTLEFRONT The ACA has filed a brief with the court in support of our efforts to obtain an order compelling Trigon to respond to our questions concerning economic discrimination. We state that, "Defendant's opposition brief makes it clear that defendants want to avoid answering the interrogatories at issue. The interrogatories are critical and are directed to defendants' preposterous contention, in response to an admission request, that, with respect to conditions treated by chiropractors, medical doctors receive superior education and training compared to chiropractors. Every study done by the medical community, to which the interrogatories are directed, refutes this trade libel." After identifying the various medical doctors employed by Trigon to establish policies and practices concerning chiropractic, we state to the court, "Here we have a group of competitive medical doctors misrepresenting their education and training concerning conditions of the neuromusculoskeletal system. Their own studies indicate that doctors of chiropractic are much better educated in this field, and achieve far superior results. As a result, premium dollars are siphoned off from those available for expert care of neuromusculoskeletal conditions and are misspent on the unqualified medical doctors, all to the ultimate harm of patients. That is the core of the issues Trigon wishes to avoid answering." 2. UPDATE ON THE HHS LAWSUIT There is nothing new to report on the lawsuit against HHS. The judge has our summary judgment and the summary judgment of the federal government. The most important remaining issue is our contention that medical doctors and osteopaths should not be reimbursed for the specific chiropractic benefit under Medicare of manual manipulation of the spine to correct a subluxation. Stay tuned. 3. NCLC 2002: THIS WEEK If you have not yet registered for NCLC 2002, please be sure to do so. NCLC, which begins on Wednesday afternoon, promises to be jammed packed with activities both legislative and otherwise. Wednesday afternoon's program is alone worth the price of admission. Beginning with a seminar on promoting your practice and continuing with an update on the VA/DOD implementation plans. Included under this segment is a special presentation by a doctor from New York who is currently on active duty in the military, Check out the schedule at the following link and register today: http://www.acatoday.com/pdf/nclc_2002_agendaregistration.pdf 4. ACA CORRESPONDS WITH STATE MEDICAL BOARDS AND OTHERS Last month, Dr. Jerome McAndrews, national spokesperson for the ACA, made a massive mailing to approximately 500 state governors, state attorney generals and state medical licensing boards. Enclosed was a 13-page synopsis of medical literature, medical studies, medical physician testimony and statements by medical physicians, compiled by ACA attorneys, deploring the lack of education, training and knowledge of medical physicians in the neuromusculoskeletal systems, and the negative and harmful consequences flowing as a result. The same material praised the education, training, and knowledge of doctors of chiropractic in the same systems and the positive health care results that follow. As stated, each quotation was taken from a medical source. The correspondence has elicited a substantial response from the recipients, indicating that the collection of materials was a surprise to many. The position paper concluded that as a result of the medical world's own positions, any patient with a neuromusculoskeletal problem should, at the first instance, see a doctor of chiropractic. The 13-page letter can be found at our Web site at: http://www.acatoday.com/pdf/Dec701.pdf Dr. McAndrews sent a follow-up letter to the same group, this time providing a copy of "The Chiropractic Saga," which chronicles the discrimination against this profession since the 1960s. See a copy of "The Chiropractic Saga" at: http://www.acatoday.com/pdf/saga.pdf 5. EVP ADVISORY COMMITTEE The EVP Advisory Committee held its monthly conference call on February 12th. Participating on the call were the ACA vice presidents, legal counsel and myself. The following states were also represented: Kentucky, Texas, Iowa, Alabama, Rhode Island, Michigan, Minnesota, Louisiana, Colorado and Missouri. ACA president Daryl D. Wills, DC, also took part on the call. Issues discussed during the call included: · The foot-dragging by the Veterans Administration and how we were addressing it · The submission to state insurance commissioners of our Medical Review Benchmarks · Discussion about the CMS directive and its meaning · The development of a Professional Responsibility Matrix with chiropractic networks · An update on NCLC 2002 The next scheduled meeting of the committee is Tuesday, March 19th, at 1:00 pm Eastern. 6. PDR AND PENNSYLVANIA CHIROPRACTIC ASSOCIATION: COOPERATION HAS POSITIVE IMPACT The ACA's Office of Professional Development and Research (PDR) received word from the Pennsylvania Chiropractic Association that a large company, Staffing Plus, Inc., was disallowing doctors of chiropractic to perform physicals on their employees in that state. Staffing Plus, Inc., cited the standards of JCAHO (Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Organizations) as their reasoning for the policy. PDR contacted JCAHO to determine if this company's interpretation of the standards was accurate. It was determined that JCAHO's standards did not explicitly state a doctor of chiropractic could or could not perform physicals, however, they did list doctors of chiropractic as "appropriately qualified practitioners." This information was then forwarded to Staffing Plus, Inc., which has subsequently reversed its policy to now allow doctors of chiropractic to perform physicals. 7. CHIROPRACTIC RELIEF DURING PREGNANCY Many mothers can attest to the fact that back pain during pregnancy is all too common. Now you can provide your patients who are mothers-to-be with some simple, take-home information on the topic. The ACA has designed a new "For Your Health" fact sheet containing information on chiropractic during pregnancy. As an ACA member, you can download it for free from ACA's Web site. Just go to the new "Health Tips" section of ACA's Web site. The pregnancy-related tip sheet can be found at the very top of the list of topics: http://www.acatoday.com/media/tips/ 8. THE VETERANS ADMINISTRATION CAN'T HELP THEMSELVES One of the reasons that our recently passed legislation establishing a permanent benefit for chiropractic included a provision requiring a chiropractic oversight committee, similar to the language in the DOD bill, was that we (nor Congress) couldn't trust the Veterans Administration to seriously follow the mandate of Congress in implementing the chiropractic provision. So we weren't completely surprised when we got hold of the implementation schedule adopted by the Veterans Administration in Washington, D.C., that put off the establishment of the oversight committee until after the implementation was established. We are in contact with Congress and will hold their feet to the fire. One thing you can do now to pressure the VA is to contact your member of Congress inquiring as to whether the VA facility in your district will include a chiropractic doctor. The law now requires that there must be at least one facility within a VA district that includes chiropractic care. We are attempting to create a groundswell of congressional support so that at a minimum each congressional district will include chiropractic care, not just a larger VA district. On our Web site are sample letters to send your member of Congress: http://www.acatoday.com/government/va/letter_senate.shtml http://www.acatoday.com/government/va/letter_house.shtml 9. HIPAA FRAUD ALERT The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently published a National Medicare Fraud Alert (# 2001-07) concerning individuals or groups posing as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA ) auditors and/or other government officials. Please be advised that there are currently no HIPAA audits being conducted. Providers should never allow individuals who fail to produce identification and proper documentation from an authorized auditing entity to gain access to the provider's computers, medical records, billing information, and other sensitive data. Should you be aware of recent attempts or become aware of future attempts by individuals to gain access to provider facilities and/or information, please contact Don Redden, Manager, Wisconsin Physicians Service Benefit Integrity, at (608) 301-2612. 10. NEW OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT: 2002 ASSESSMENT UPGRADE NOW AVAILABLE The much talked-about Outcomes Assessment CD-ROM, developed by Dr. Kim Christensen and Dr. Steve Yeomans, announces its 2002 upgrade. This upgrade includes: a FREE 30-day limited trial, normative data on every patient's outcome assessment summary report, range of motion reports demonstrating improvement and further treatment necessary to normalize patient, updated tips to help you learn this program in less than 10 minutes, ability to resize fonts to your liking to produce a high quality report, and cost itemization to document case costs and averages. Order the Outcomes Assessment 2002 CD and the Clinical Application of Outcomes Assessment text by Dr. Steve Yeomans at a 10% discount for ACA members ($246). Order Item: OAKIT. The upgrade fee for existing Outcomes Assessment users is only $99. To learn more or to order, call 1-800-368-3083. |
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