The AAFP welcomed Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi's decisions March 30 on the scope of chiropractic care in Veterans Health Administration settings.
Principi was responding to a Nov. 3, 2003, list of 38 recommendations sent to him from the department's 11-member Chiropractic Advisory Committee. The committee is made up of six chiropractors, a physical therapist, a member of a veterans service group, and three physicians including AAFP Past President Warren Jones, M.D., of Ridgeland, Miss.
The decisions are "entirely consistent with Academy policy that nonphysician providers of care must engage the patient's family physician in the important decision to provide necessary health care services," said AAFP Executive Vice President Douglas Henley, M.D.
The following approved recommendations are likely to be of particular note for family physicians:
During the committee's deliberations, Jones reiterated the Academy's position that chiropractors should not be viewed as primary care providers. In 2001, when Congress was considering a legislative proposal to designate chiropractors as primary care providers in VHA settings, letters and e-mails to Congress from nearly 7,800 AAFP members helped derail that provision.
The Academy also led a coalition of the American Osteopathic Association, the American Medical Association and the Vietnam Veterans of America to oppose the bill. When the bill emerged from conference committee, the language granting new privileges for chiropractors was deleted, and the VA's Chiropractic Advisory Committee was created to examine scope-of-practice issues.
"This is an example of the Academy representing the best interests of our members and their patients by working to prevent proposed bad legislation from happening," Henley said. "It is important that our members understand this type of 'success' as much as when we achieve the passage of positive legislation -- both are very important."
To read the background on the issue, go to http://www.aafp.org/fpr/20011200/4.html and http://www.aafp.org/fpr/20020200/9.html.
To reach writer J. Michael Brodie, e-mail mbrodie@aafp.org.
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Copyright © 2004 by American Academy of Family Physicians.