Landmark Announces Provider-Friendly
Policy Changes
Landmark Healthcare, one of the country’s largest chiropractic managed
care networks, is making policy changes that will ease administrative burdens
in pre-certification and enable participating doctors of chiropractic to receive
payment more easily for patient care decisions that are within evidence-based
guidelines.
The proposed changes were announced during a May 22 meeting with American Chiropractic
Association officials in Arlington, Va. The meeting with Landmark officials
was just one in a series of talks the ACA has held with chiropractic networks
to problem-solve stubborn managed care issues that providers face on a daily
basis. The issues are sensitive and generate emotions from many perspectives—including
not only the problems doctors face in treating patients, but also those that
networks experience in meeting client demands.
“I am happy to support changes that make sense from a clinical standpoint
and that can streamline the doctor’s time and effort,” said Lawrence
M. Jack, D.C., vice president and chief clinical officer for Landmark. “I
am all for a hassle-free system.”
Landmark, which services two million covered lives, is also considering changes
to its administrative criteria to better align that criteria with its evidence-based
guidelines—a step that would reduce the need for doctors to go through
the appeals process to get paid for X-rays.
U.S. House of Representatives Demands Veterans Affairs
Department Hire DCs
The House of Representatives has formally ordered the Department of Veterans
Affairs to speed up the implementation of chiropractic services into the veterans’
health care system—a requirement that was passed into law in 1999 but
has since been delayed by bureaucratic foot dragging.
The bill, known as the Veterans Health Care Improvement Act (HR 2357), was passed
by voice vote on Monday, July 21. Championed by Rep. Jerry Moran (R-KS) and
Rep. Rob Simmons (R-CT), chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee
on Health, it contains a provision instructing the VA to hire and employ doctors
of chiropractic. Legislation passed in 1999 (P.L. 106-117) required the VA to
develop a plan for offering chiropractic care, but the new bill goes a step
further and eliminates the remaining bureaucratic obstacles that have prevented
the formal establishment of chiropractic clinical care in the VA.
“Millions of Americans use the services of doctors of chiropractic,”
said Rep. Moran during remarks on the House floor. “However, veterans
who are enrolled in the VA health care system are unable to 
receive
this specialty care. Numerous studies have demonstrated that chiropractic care
can and is an effective therapy. ... Congress has acted twice before on chiropractic
care in the VA health care system, but our intent has not yet been implemented
by the Department of Veterans Affairs.”
HR 2357 now moves to the U.S. Senate. Earlier this month, the ACA and the ACC
lobbying teams met with Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), the chairman of the Senate
Veterans Affairs Committee, to brief him on the need for prompt consideration
of the chiropractic provisions of HR 2357. Senator Specter expressed his strong
interest in the legislation and in taking steps to ensure that America’s
veterans have access to chiropractic care.
Coalition of Chiropractic Organizations Support Alternative Medicare Bill.
Media and government attention has been riveted on the Medicare drug bill, which
contains a much-criticized provision for a chiropractic demonstration project
that was tacked on during the final stages of the bill’s journey through
the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, another bill is gaining support in the House which
may provide better access to chiropractors and significantly reduce health care
costs, according to a coalition of chiropractic organizations.
HR 2560—dubbed the “Chiropractic Medicare Freedom and Benefit Protection
Act”—has been hailed by Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Ill.) as a “revolutionary”
bill that will provide a “definition of chiropractic that actually reflects
what chiropractic has always been and what it should always be.” As chair
of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Small Business, Rep. Manzullo
conducted extensive hearings into Medicare reform and championed numerous health
care cost-cutting measures.
According to the Chiropractic Coalition—comprised of the World Chiropractic
Alliance (WCA), International Chiropractors Association and Federation of Straight
Chiropractors and Organizations—the bill’s purpose is to prevent
duplication of services between chiropractors and medical doctors. Rather than
establish a new chiropractic program, such as is recommended in the Medicare
drug bill provision, HR 2560 would establish a separate chiropractic category.
For more information on legislation affecting the chiropractic profession.
New Studies Link
Heavy Backpacks to Back Pain and Poor Posture
Two
new studies showing that heavy backpacks can lead to both back pain and poor
posture in school children underscore the need for parents to educate their
children on the proper use of backpacks.
The first study, published in the May 2003 issue of the journal Spine, found
that the uses of backpacks during the school day—and the weights of the
backpacks—are associated with back pain. A second study, presented by
researcher Dr. Heidi Orloff at a May 28 meeting of the American College of Sports
Medicine, concluded that children actually hunch their bodies forward and lower
their heads to accommodate the burden of wearing heavy backpacks.
The ACA offers the following tips to help prevent the needless pain that backpack
misuse could cause the students in your household:
• The backpack should weigh no more than 10 percent of a child’s
bodyweight.
• The backpack should never hang more than four inches below the waistline.
• A backpack with individualized compartments helps in positioning the
contents most effectively.
• Wear both shoulder straps to distribute the weight of the backpack evenly.
• Wide, padded straps are very important.
• Shoulder straps should be adjustable so the backpack can be fitted to
your child’s body.
• Ask your child’s teacher if your child could leave the heaviest
books at school, and bring home only lighter handout materials.
Bicentennial Trust Fund Started for Chiropractic
The Chiropractic Centennial Foundation (CCF) has sent a check in the amount
of $59,860.70 to the Association of Chiropractic Colleges (ACC) as the first
deposit for the Bicentennial Trust Fund.
The idea for the trust fund was initiated after the 1995 centennial celebration
of the chiropractic profession when the CCF discovered that it had leftover
funds in its treasury. The funds will go toward chiropractic’s bicentennial
in 2095.
In May 2003 the CCF Board of Trustees voted to accept the trust agreement between
the Association of Chiropractic Colleges and the CCF. Both organizations had
been waiting for the Chiropractic Colleges Education and Research Foundation
to receive not-for-profit status. The ACC, repository of the trust fund, created
the CCERF for various purposes, including the ability to act as the initial
trustee of the fund.
The American Chiropractic Association, the International Chiropractors Association
and the World Federation of Chiropractic are the three advisory organizations
to the CCERF. Each of these organizations will select three of its members to
serve on the foundation’s advisory committee.
Combining Foods
Affords Best Protection
In
laboratory tests, researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology
have discovered that antioxidants in supplement form don’t measure up
to the benefits that come from eating the whole vegetables or fruits from which
they are derived.
In fact, eating a combinations of these foods—rather than just one—increases
their benefits and preventive properties against cardiovascular disease because
each contains a variety of different antioxidants that work together synergistically.
Dietary antioxidants are natural compounds that slow the chemical process called
oxidation, which causes cholesterol deposition and narrowing of the arteries.
The researchers also found that ingesting combinations of certain antioxidants
yields better results than those same antioxidants ingested separately.
In his previous widely published studies, Aviram was the first to prove that
red wine reduces cholesterol oxidation and arteriosclerosis, which leads to
heart disease, a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the Western world.
Later studies confirmed the antioxidant benefits of licorice, olive oil, onions
and pomegranates.
Research Explores Possible Link Between Infertility and Undetected Spinal
Problems
Research being conducted by chiropractors into how spinal health influences
fertility may give hope to couples who have been unable to have children, even
after medical fertility treatment.
The Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research has begun publication of a series
of case studies and commentaries documenting positive responses to chiropractic
care among infertile women, regardless of factors including age, history and
previous intervention.
The first in the series, “Insult, Interference and Infertility: An Overview
of Chiropractic Research,” is a literature review of 14 retrospective
articles exploring the possible effect of spinal problems on fertility.
All of the women in these studies were found to have vertebral subluxations—misalignments
and/or related problems of the spine that interfere with how the nerves work.
These problems in the spine can be corrected by chiropractors with painless
adjustments to the affected spinal area.
Upcoming JVSR research articles will report on how physical, mental, chemical
and emotional stress, can act, over time, as undetected insults to spinal health
and contribute to vertebral subluxations.
In explaining how chiropractic adjustments could affect fertility, Dr. Madeline
Behrendt, associate editor of JVSR and lead researcher of this project, noted,
“Essential to all processes of life is the nervous system, which perceives
the environment and coordinates the cellular community’s biological response
to the impinging environmental stimuli. It is reasonable to consider that a
system that is properly functioning to its potential may resist destructive
forces more successfully and with less damage.”
Parent Groups Support New Texas Vaccine Exemption Law
The National
Vaccine Information Center and Americans for Vaccine Safety and Accountability
are joining with the Texas-based parent organization, Parents Requesting Open
Vaccine Education, in voicing strong support for the new Texas vaccine exemption
law. The new law allows parents to exercise a conscientious belief exemption
to vaccination. Together, all three organizations represent more than 200,000
Americans committed to defending the informed consent rights of citizens to
make voluntary health care choices when there is a risk of injury or death.
Parent and health care professional groups are responding to the recent outcry
by Texas pediatricians and public health officials, who criticized passage of
the new vaccine exemption in House Bill 2292, which was signed into law by Governor
Rick Perry.
The Texas legislature joins with the Arkansas legislature this past session
in providing parents with the right to conscientious or philosophical belief
exemption to vaccination.
WCA Forms Nutrition Council in an effort to increase awareness of the
role nutrition plays in subluxations, the World Chiropractic Alliance has formed
the Council on Nutrition.
The first order of business for the council is to create a network of chiropractors
specializing in various aspects of nutrition. Next, the council will strive
to educate health care providers as well as the public about the benefits of
nutrition, along with subluxation-based chiropractic care, in enhancing state
of well-being.
The council will also examine the consequences of poor nutritional choices on
an individual’s health and the relationship to the chemical causes of
subluxation.
For more information on the council, send an email to nutritioncouncil@worldchiropracticalliance.org.
UAW Includes Chiropractic Care on Wish List to Automakers
In a report
from the Detroit Free Press, during the initial proposal submitted to Detroit’s
three automakers in late July, the UAW included chiropractic care in their wish
list for a new contract. The list of requests submitted was 89 pages long to
the Chrysler Group and 115 pages long to the General Motors Corp.
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