A PT student wrote:
I have a question for dcdcdcdc as a physical therapy student I certainly respect the evidence based conservative care that is being performed by these "modern" chiro's. My only concern is that this type of treatment seems to be encroaching into care performed by other healthcare professions including my own. While I certainly am not versed well enough in modern chiro literature to have a fair debate regarding practice encroachment I wonder what you do with your patient's when they are also seeing a PT for the same condition? Do you provide duplicate services? Also what do you do regarding billing insurance, will you and the PT both bill the insurance as well as when insurance only covers PT do you tell pts to only seek PT services?
You are correct that chiros encroach onto care normally provided by other healthcare providers. A high school classmate of mine is a chiro, and she recently stated via a networking site that her young daughter had a cold, so she gave her an adjustment and she's much better. Sad.
If a pt tells me that they're seeing a chiro as well as me, I tell them flat out they have to choose. I will NOT see them if they continues to use chiropractic services.
The problem become greater if the chiro bills insurance for PT services provided when they cannot legally bill for such services. Some chiros will bill this way if the patient's insurance does not cover chiro, but covers PT.
I have a big beef with chiropractors in NC as some of them paid off our Speaker of the House Jim Black (who's now in prison) so their services were considered "primary care" providers and lowered co-payments for their services. This legislation has now been repealed.
This is from the Raleigh News-Observer:
Chiropractors' Cash
Between 2002 and 2005, Black illegally received $29,000 from chiropractors Fletcher Keith and Thomas Brown of Charlotte and Steve Willen of Greensboro, according to court records.
* In February of 2002, the chiropractors gave Black $8,000 in cash at a private dining club in Charlotte.
* In December, they gave him $10,000 in cash at the same dining club.
* On Feb. 14, 2004, two chiropractors gave him $4,000 in cash in the bathroom of a restaurant in Concord. At the same event, the third gave him a check for $4,000 that he deposited into his personal bank account.
* On Dec. 3, 2005, a chiropractor gave Black another $3,000 in cash in the restroom of the Capital Grille in Charlotte.
In 2005, Black pushed for legislation that would lower insurance co-payments for chiropractors. He succeeded by inserting language in the state budget, avoiding public debate. The provision cost the state's largest insurer $8 million.
In exchange for cooperating with investigators, the three chiropractors will not be prosecuted. They also will not face disciplinary action from the N.C. Board of Chiropractic Examiners.