February 2004

CCA fights cuts in workers’ comp

The California Chiropractic Association has taken the cuffs off and is actively fighting cuts in the state’s workers’ compensation system that adversely affect chiropractic.

At a state senate hearing, the association outlined a series of fundamental weaknesses in pending workers' compensation reform bills SBX4 3 and ABX4 1. In short, CCA testified that last year's legislation will cut chiropractic care by as much as 70 percent and that new legislation would simply seek to eliminate chiropractic care altogether.

"We should all be honest about this," said Dr. Doug Wilson, CCA president, in a statement. "No other state in the nation restricts chiropractors from making a determination of disability. Years ago, California voters used the initiative process to ensure people in this state had access to chiropractic care. This year's legislation is simply an effort to eliminate chiropractic care for injured workers."

"There is no credible evidence that chiropractic care produces higher rates of disability than other medical treatment," continued Dr. Wilson. "The foundation of this proposal is arbitrary and it is built on a series of false promises. Removing chiropractic care as a choice for injured workers will not save the state money. Removing chiropractic care as a choice for injured workers will not save employers money. Removing chiropractic care as a choice for injured workers will not save workers money. Removing chiropractic care from the workers' compensation system will only enable other medical providers to increase their costs for services such as surgery, drugs and other therapies."

Under the proposed legislation, chiropractors would lose the ability to determine when a worker may return to work or whether the worker should be placed on temporary or permanent disability. These restrictions would require an injured worker who received chiropractic treatment to make unnecessary visits to a medical doctor before returning to work, before being placed on temporary disability or permanent disability.

CCA believes this new layer of bureaucracy would increase costs and effectively freeze chiropractic doctors out of the workers' compensation system by making chiropractic care prohibitively expensive.

In California, doctors of chiropractic are required by law to refer to another health care provider any patient with a condition that will not respond to chiropractic care.

"Chiropractors are trained and licensed to serve as primary care doctors. We are well qualified to determine disability," said Dr. Wilson. "We take pride in our profession and our ability to alleviate pain, rehabilitate injuries and return injured workers back to work quickly. This proposal has no known cost savings but certainly will be costly in terms of pain for injured workers who would be denied the most effective treatment for their injuries."

Source: California Chiropractic Association through Business Wire

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