Where's the "Breakthrough" Coverage of Chiropractic in the Media?
Dear Editor:
Regarding "Conservative Care Beats Medication for Neck Pain" [Feb. 12, 2012 DC], I thought you might like to see how The Wall Street Journal reported on this study. This was their front-page headline , in section D, in the Jan. 3, 2012 edition: "Neck Pain? Skip the Pills, Just Stretch Like a Chicken." They mention chiropractic in the body of the article, but otherwise state home exercise is the best treatment for neck pain.
That same evening on "ABC Evening News" with Diane Sawyer, their medical consultant, Dr. Richard Besser, did a segment on the study and made sure the takeaway was that exercise at home is the most important thing you could do. He managed to mention chiropractic once, but quickly moved on to other parts of the study.
When a drug or a surgery study shows even the slightest positive finding, a "medical breakthrough" is trumpeted in the media. When chiropractic is shown to be superior to medical treatment, we are told just to "stretch like a chicken" to get the same results. With that kind of media coverage, it is small wonder the average chiropractor struggles from day to day. I have been in practice for 36 years and wish that I could say that things have changed for the better, but in my opinion they have not. For the young chiros, I hope the paradigm shifts before we become extinct.
Richard Butykos, DC
Dearborn Heights, Mich.
The Foundation's White Paper Needs an Adjustment
Dear Editor:
Shocked and outraged! The Foundation for Chiropractic Progress (F4CP) can't understand why the American Medical Association (AMA) and American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) would turn down its advertisement [Dec. 16, 2011 DC]. Do they really believe these two organizations would open up their arms to our profession?
The F4CP presents a limited role for the chiropractic profession in the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) to supposedly make the best use of research. It can hardly whisper our chiropractic primary care traditions. Its failure to stand up and affirm the policies and positions of the Council on Chiropractic Education, American Chiropractic Association and International Chiropractors Association, as well as legal scopes of chiropractic practice throughout the nation, reflects the foundation's willingness to fragment our profession in order to gain acceptance in the allopathic/osteopathic monopolized health care system. Its action and strategy ignores our tradition, our scope and our patient's interests, and thus falls short in helping and invigorating us to reach our full potential and affirm our path to healing art independence to better serve those free people who seek naturally based primary health care, especially in the PCMH.
The F4CP must be cognizant of the detrimental effects we have experienced when we present a limited scope of practice for the sake of acceptance in the health care system. We've been through this mill before with Medicare in the 1960s – our scope remains limited and pharmaceutical reimbursement is expanded; managed care in the 1990s – the system is so expensive national health care reform is here; the military and veteran's health care systems in the 2000s – it is taking acts of Congress to enforce full inclusion and better utilization of our services; workers' compensation managed care – injured workers are steered to non-DC clinics and offices; and now national health care reform with the PCMH – the NCQA with its leading and influential role in the insurance industry purposely excludes us.
The road to PCMHs will largely be funded by the federal government, your taxes and your patients' taxes paying for a system of health care which favors the allopathic and osteopathic medical professions, limits patient choice and limits chiropractic practice acts. A superb example of taxation without representation resulting in monopolistic control of health care! The F4CP fails to recognize this and fails to stand up for the principle of self-determination.
This PCMH concept is supposed to improve the delivery of primary care in the public and private health care systems. Primary care, especially if it is "patient centered," starts with the individual, not the health care profession, the insurance industry, the credentialing organization, academia or the government. The individual and family dedicated to addressing their primary health care needs first through natural methods must have the liberty to seek care from those legitimate healing art disciplines (allopathic medicine, chiropractic, naturopathy, osteopathic medicine) which have evolved to provide such care.
We should not be "asking" if we can be included, whether to our full scopes of practice or to a limited musculoskeletal role. We need not continue to rationalize our inclusion based upon a credentialing organization's perspectives or the interests of the orthodox medical system in government and the private sectors. It is incumbent upon the credentialing organizations to fully include all primary care healing art disciplines, with each profession providing their experts for credentialing activities. All organizations representing our profession should unequivocally stand up and declare this principle when meeting with health care policy decision-makers such as the NCQA.
Our country continues on this path to socialized medicine for the general population. Whether the system is run by the federal or state government, by public/private partnerships, or the private health insurance market, the liberties of men and women, not solely our opportunity to practice to the limit of our license, are at stake. I suggest the F4CP take a stand and declare our independence as a whole-body health-care discipline with practitioners interested and qualified in providing generalist care, specialty care and primary care – especially full recognition in operating a PCMH. The F4CP must adjust its white paper [see "The Medical Home: Health Personalized" in the Aug. 26, 2011 issue of DC for more information] to establish consistency with our established tradition, training, policies and statutes and most importantly, patient liberties.
Richard Duenas, DC
West Hartford, Conn.
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