OSCIPA 2011 Legislative Summary

First of all a special thanks to our OSCIPA lobbyist Dennis Adkins for keeping us informed of both the content and status of bills of interest to the chiropractic profession. I will also acknowledge the efforts of Dr. Dan Post our legislative committee chairman in his efforts to follow each bill identified by Dennis as a bill that could impact the profession. The OK-Legislature stood adjourned as of May 27th. Governor Mary Fallin put an exclamation point on a successful legislative session by signing 8 bills that were major republican priorities this year.

WORKERS COMP BILL: SB 878 regarding worker’s compensation drew a lot of attention from chiropractors statewide. A lot of misinformation surfaced during the latter days of this bill going through the house and the senate. OSCIPA was very much involved in following this bill through the efforts of Dennis and Dr. Post as to whether or not we should have collectively opposed this bill.  According to OSCIPA Board Chairman Dr. Dan Post, “this bill passed the Senate 48-0 and the House 81 -8. In the final analysis it was decided that it did not adversely impact the majority of the chiropractors so the decision was made not to get overly involved without a common cause to do so.” Dr. Post’s summary of this bill is that “chiropractors can no longer be IME’s for the Work Comp Court and can no longer testify in the court on PPI (Permanent Partial Disability) cases. Only MD’s and DO’s are now allowed to do this.”

He also suggests that it does legislate that the Physician Advisory Committee (PAC) will begin following “Evidence Based Guidelines” for the treatment of cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine injuries. It specifies the most common CPT codes used for these injuries. This may give the majority of the chiropractors a possible avenue to get back in the WC care arena, as we all know that virtually all the “evidence” shows manipulation to be one of the best treatments of choice for many of the referenced conditions. Even though chiropractic lost some of its status as physicians of the court there may be some hope of getting back into this arena of care. However we must always be on guard to prevent these types of restrictions in other areas of the law!

CHIROPRACTIC ASSISTANT CERTIFICATON: Another bill that we have been following that was signed by the governor is HB 1658 which specifically impacts Chiropractic Assistants by creating a CA certification requirement. This means that in the future unlicensed chiropractic assistants as we know them today will be required to be certified to continue to deliver health services to patients. Insurance companies have traditionally been struggling with this issue when paying claims that may have services on them that were not done by the chiropractor but by his/her CA. This effort will also improve the professionalism of the profession by having all CA’s certified.  As you may know, OSCIPA has partnered with Dr. Rosalind Canham, creator of Professional Online Education in Arizona. Not only has Dr. Canham written CA certification programs for several other states, but she also created one just for Oklahoma CA certification.  We are still waiting to find out whether or not this program will be accepted by the state of Oklahoma for use in educating CA’s for their certification requirement.  This bill requires the board of Chiropractic Examiners to promulgate rules regarding certified chiropractic assistants.

SB 0299 was also signed by the Governor and changes the authorization of the Board of Chiropractic Examiners to employ one or more investigators to the authority to contract with one or more investigators. It requires any investigator to be certified as a peace officer by the council on Law Enforcement and Training and have statewide jurisdiction to perform the authorized duties.  It requires an advisory committee to meet and determine whether a complaint merits further investigation after an initial complaint is received.

A final note on the work that this House and Senate did during the 2011 session is that SB 0772 creates a 15 member Business and Professional License Facilitation Task Force to study the existing governmental models in Florida, Ohio, and other states that have established a central contact point or agency for the facilitation of the majority of business and professional licenses and applications. This would be leaning toward creating a Healing Arts type board for all health care professionals.

COPAY EQUALITY: We at OSCIPA have encouraged our lobbyist to look into the new Co-Pay Equality law passed in South Dakota this year. This law says that no health insurer may impose any copayment or coinsurance amount on an insured for services rendered by a doctor of chiropractic licensed pursuant to chapter 36-5 that is greater than the copayment or coinsurance amount imposed on the insured for the services of a primary care physician or practitioner for the same or similar diagnosed condition even if a different nomenclature is used to describe the condition.