A Special Message For Veterans and Veterans Organizations

Background...
In America today, chiropractic care is widely recognized as being a highly efficacious and cost-effective form of health care used to treat a wide variety of healthcare conditions. Despite the wide-spread utilization, broad acceptance, and popular demand for chiropractic care throughout our society - the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) has consistently failed to make any meaningful level of chiropractic benefits available to veterans eligible to receive care within the DVA healthcare system.

For years, the DVA maintained to Congress and other organizations that chiropractic benefits were adequately provided to veterans within the DVA system however, when the DVA was forced to reveal actual utilization data to Congress, it was revealed that, as a practical matter, the benefit was largely non-existent. In fact, it was determined that veterans are routinely denied access to chiropractic care throughout the DVA system, and that referral to doctors of chiropractic by DVA physicians rarely takes place.

To this day, the DVA has no doctors of chiropractic on staff at any DVA healthcare treatment facility and rarely provides access to chiropractic care, although eligible veterans are entitled to receive this care. At best, the DVA's long-standing attitude towards chiropractic care might be described as "benign neglect." Less charitably, it could be described as a deliberate failure to ensure adequate care is provided to those veterans in need of this form of treatment.

Recent Congressional Action...
Recognizing the failure of the DVA to satisfactorily integrate chiropractic care into the DVA healthcare system, the U.S. Congress passed legislation requiring the DVA to develop and issue a "new policy" regarding veteran access to chiropractic care. In response to this directive, the DVA crafted a so-called "new policy" - but, as a practical matter, the new policy did little to improve access to chiropractic care.

Angered by the short comings of DVA's response to its directive, Congress enacted a new and more detailed piece of legislation mandating that DVA provide chiropractic care in all DVA regions. This new legislation (P.L. 107-135) was signed into law January 23, 2002, by President Bush.

The legislation includes a provision creating an official "Advisory Committee" consisting of health care professionals, including doctors of chiropractic, to advise the DVA Secretary on how best to integrate chiropractic care into the DVA healthcare system. That committee has been constituted and has held two meetings as of January 2003. Additional meetings are planned for 2003 and it is anticipated that the Advisory Committee will issue a set of recommendations to the Secretary before the end of this year. Presumably, the Secretary will then take action to integrate chiropractic care into the DVA consistent with the official advice rendered by the Advisory Committee -- however, he does retain significant authority and discretion under the new law to make specific decisions regarding how the benefit is to be provisioned within the DVA healthcare system.

What You and Your Group Can Do to Help...
If you want to help ensure veteran access to chiropractic care, you are urged to do the following:

1. Write the two U.S. Senators from your state and your local Member of the U.S. House of Representatives a letter. In your letter ask them what specific steps they plan to take to ensure that Public Law 107-135 is fully implemented in your local area and that chiropractic care is made available at or through the local DVA facility where you received your care. Further, ask them to project a date when they anticipate chiropractic care will be fully available in your area. Stress in your letter that you do not want any "barriers" established that would prevent veterans from obtaining chiropractic care within the DVA system.



2. Also write to the senior administrator of your local DVA treatment facility and ask them when chiropractic care, as specified in Public Law 107-135, will be available in your local area.



3. IMPORTANT -- If possible, have the local chapter of any veterans group to which you belong send similar letters to your federal representatives and to the local DVA. Collectively, these letters will carry a great deal of clout, especially if they are issued on the letterhead of your local veterans organization.



4. Recruit other veterans to do the same actions outlined.

For additional information regarding chiropractic care and this issue, you may contact the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) at (703)276-8800 or at Memberinfo@amerchiro.org.