Chiropractic in National Health Care

Chiropractic in National Health Care

December 23rd, 2009 // 10:35 am @ Dr. Todd Osborne // 3 Comments

As national health care is on the horizon, or at least some type of involvement of government in the health care realm, we as chiropractors are again likely to see more cuts and limitations on reimbursements for chiropractic care.  I see this as both a bad thing and a good thing.   How can I see both sides?  Well it will be bad for many chiropractors, there will be more and more chiropractors that will struggle, go out of business, and possibly even leave the profession for some other vocation.  So many in our great profession have been sucked into the insurance reimbursement cycle and have become so dependent on it, that it and it alone determines their ultimate success or failure.  So as government gets involved we can expect less reimbursement and less approval for chiropractic care, thus chiropractors themselves will suffer and struggle even more than they are at this time, so this is a bad thing.

This is also a good thing, not necessarily for all individual chiropractors, but for the profession itself.  How?  Because it is time for chiropractic to get back to it’s roots, to get back to the basics, and to become CHIROPRACTIC again!  So as reimbursement and utilization slides, the only ones in our profession that will stay solid and be successful chiropractors will be the ones who have based their practice on the fundamentals of chiropractic…..finding subluxations and correcting them.  Trust me, as long as there are chiropractors finding and correcting subluxations there will be chiropractic no matter whether insurance exists, no matter if we have medicare or national health care, no matter if we have approval of the AMA, etc.   We have a service that people need and want if we will just provide it.  And those that position themselves to continue providing quality chiropacTIC care will be the ones that can weather the storm, survive, and thrive.

Chiropractors were very successful before health insurance existed, but we as a profession have fallen into the trap of believing people won’t pay for our services unless they have insurance and we have lost the basic abilities in our patient management to educate people to the level where they can make an intelligent decision to pay for quality chiropractic services out of their pocket.  We must each ask ourselves, if all insurance coverage for chiropractic care ended tomorrow, where would that leave us both individually and as a profession?  I know that I know that I know chiropracTIC and chiropracTORs will survive, but I also know it will only be the ones that can offer true chiropractic care, finding and adjusting subluxations, and the ones who truly know how to manage and educate patients about chiropractic.

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