News from the North East Chiropractic Council

Since 1980, the New England Chiropractic Council has been an organization whose primary purpose is to support and promote the chiropractic profession in the New England states. Last year the council changed its name to the North East Chiropractic Council (NECC) to include the major chiropractic societies of New York and New Jersey.

The NECC now has approximately 7,000 actively practicing chiropractic physicians, and acts as a strategic planning arm for the state associations.

As state borders become less meaningful for the health care profession in the '90s, communications and information sharing between the states is rising at a dizzying pace. Whether it is research reports on auto reform in Massachusetts, universal health care proposals in Vermont, or a small group of DCs in Rhode Island trying to speak for the entire profession, government agencies, insurers, administrators and others meet for discussions and to formulate and make policy based on information gathered on the experience of others. So must we.

Chiropractic inclusion in health care reform is clearly going to be based on the sharing of valuable information with those who make decisions, not just at the board tables of corporate American, but at the dinner table of every household. Chiropractic has long suffered from the dissemination of misinformation. The NECC's main purpose is to share information from each state society to help those societies inform their members and the public.

Quarterly Meetings

Each quarter the member organizations send representatives of their boards and committees to a meeting to discuss issues of regional interest. The sites of our last three meetings have been Providence, RI, Casco Bay, ME, and New York City.

Among this year's activities

• A legal report was presented on unionizing the NECC. Our attorney's advice was not to go this route at this time, as there were many legal issues yet unresolved. However, our attorney noted that he had "never seen the northeast chiropractic group so unified and organized."

   

• In July, we authorized Alan Post, our immediate past president, to send a letter to the Rhode Island Dept. of Health about the actions of a utilization review company that was operating in a manner not consistent with the normal standards of care and protocols of chiropractic. Our concerns were supported by the Association of Chiropractic Colleges, which supplied supportive documentation. The Dept. of Health has since revoked the utilization review license of the company involved.

   

• Maine legislated a separate law for chiropractic assistants.

   

• For the past several NECC meetings, the ACA district representatives have held their meeting in conjunction with us. This has allowed our region to work with the ACA on local and national issues. This type of coordinated approach is not used in most parts of the country.

   

• The NECC board is considering a program to piggyback onto the national public education program of the Alliance for Chiropractic Progress.

   

• We're in communication with the NCMIC regarding the malpractice insurer's efforts to create a national chiropractic HMO (TRIAD).

   

• The NECC is putting together a new census. The last census we did was in 1994, which was given to all regional DCs and sent to all the chiropractic colleges. These demographic reports are extremely helpful to DCs in determining where to open a practice or satellite clinic.

   

• The northeastern colleges, NYCC and UBCC, have updated our membership on their status, including: student enrollment; future admission requirements; operating costs; accreditation; student loan default rates (NYCC had the lowest of all NY colleges); and future plans.

At the most recent meeting of the Association of Chiropractic Colleges (ACC), there was a discussion of the necessary qualifications for health care providers who are performing chiropractic-type spinal adjusting. The ACC's position was that all those providers must have a total number of hours of education/clinical experience that meets or exceeds that of DCs.

This information is extremely valuable to the New England states, many of which are formulating legislation to limit spinal adjusting procedures to only those practitioners with equal training to ours.

The NECC is actively working to enhance to the chiropractic profession in our region. We are coordinating national and state activities to provide a forum where ideas and information can be exchanged. We seek to advance our profession in an efficient and effective way. Your comments and insights are always appreciated.

Barry Freedman, MS,DC
President, NECC