Assembly alters chiropractic bill

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Assembly alters chiropractic bill
September 8, 2007
By John Hill - Bee Capitol Bureau
The Sacramento Bee

California chiropractors would salvage some of their historic independence but still come under the control of a state consumer affairs department for the first time, according to amendments to a bill approved by the Assembly on Friday.

Even with the changes, Senate Bill 801 will force the state board that oversees chiropractors "to comply with open meeting laws and other provisions that apply to similar health-related boards in the state," the author, Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas, D-Los Angeles, said in a prepared statement.

"For too long, the board has not been fulfilling its fundamental mission of protecting the public," Ridley-Thomas said. "Therefore, reform is the order of the day."

SB 801 had been widely opposed by chiropractors as an attack on the autonomy of their profession. The main association representing chiropractors said Friday it continues to oppose the bill because of uncertainties over how much the changes would infringe on the profession's independence.

Nonetheless, the bill scraps one of the provisions the association found most objectionable: giving the Legislature the power to decide what kinds of treatment chiropractors can provide.

Until now, an initiative approved by voters in 1922 had largely governed chiropractors' scope of practice.

But Ridley-Thomas, after a series of hearings on recent controversies at the state Board of Chiropractic Examiners, introduced a bill to put a measure on the June 2008 ballot to bring chiropractors under tighter control of the Legislature and governor.

The measure would have allowed the Legislature to make changes to the 1922 act. That provision, in particular, set off vehement protest from chiropractors.

"This would give powerful special interest groups, including organized medicine groups, the opportunity to limit patients' access to chiropractic care," according to "talking points" compiled by the California Chiropractic Association. "This ultimately will limit patients' choices for health and wellness treatments."

Under the changes approved by the Legislature on Friday, the proposition that would be put on the June ballot would not give lawmakers the power to tinker with the 1922 initiative act.

But it would put the Board of Chiropractic Examiners under the Department of Consumer Affairs. Sixteen other boards that deal with health care are already part of the department. The chiropractic profession also would be subject to state laws governing other healing art professions.

The director of the consumer affairs department, however, would not have the power to disapprove rules or regulations governing chiropractors' scope of practice or educational requirements.

The changes to SB 801 also would restore the Board of Chiropractic Examiners' budget, which had been slashed in half.

And it reduces the proposed size of the board from nine members to seven. The current board consists of seven members, including five chiropractors and two members of the public. Ridley-Thomas originally proposed changing to a nine-member board, including four public members and five professionals. The amendments return to a seven-member board, the same as now, except that three would represent the public and only four would be professionals.

A provision requiring Senate approval of appointees remains in the bill.

The California Chiropractic Association remains opposed to the bill, spokeswoman Carri Cummings said. The association's board and legal counsel have not had time to review the amendments, Cummings said. And they're unsure the change that would make chiropractors comply with general statutes that apply to other health-care professionals.

"They're just not sure what that means, what that opens them up to," Cummings said. "They need some clarification on those issues."

The state board that governs 15,000 or so chiropractors found itself embroiled in controversy in March when board members appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, including two friends from his bodybuilding days, took several legally questionable actions.

They fired the executive director without due process, ejected a deputy attorney general assigned as their legal counsel from a meeting, and accredited a chiropractic college that did not have an active application before the board.

Legislators who reviewed the board's actions later determined that several board members repeatedly violated open meetings laws, tried to fire workers protected by civil service, and invited chiropractors facing discipline to contact board members, despite the requirement that board members act as impartial judges in disciplinary cases.

If it's approved by the Assembly, SB 801 would have to return to the Senate for concurrence in the amendments.

About the writer:
The Bee's John Hill can be reached at (916) 326-5543 or jhill@sacbee.com.

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