Guidelines

Low Back Pain Guidelines

The American Chiropractic Association adopts, but is not limited to, the Noninvasive Treatments for Acute, Subacute, and Chronic Low Back Pain: A Clinical Practice Guideline from the American College of Physicians as current best practices for the treatment and management of low back pain.

The American Chiropractic Association encourages the use of chiropractic specific guidelines in conjunction with the Noninvasive Treatments for Acute, Subacute, and Chronic Low Back Pain: A Clinical Practice Guideline from the American College of Physicians and therefore also adopts, but is not limited to, the clinical practice guideline from the Clinical Compass (formerly known as the Council on Chiropractic Guidelines and Practice Parameters), to provide specific guidance in the management or co-management of a patient within a chiropractic office.

Ratified by the ACA House of Delegates: 2017

The American Chiropractic Association urges organizations that have developed practice parameters to recognize that practice parameters are educational tools, not mechanisms to determine reimbursement or credentialing, to assist physicians in clinical decision making and are not replacements for clinical decision making. Physicians must retain autonomy to vary from practice parameters without retribution in order to provide the quality of care that meets the individual needs of their patients; and encourages doctors of chiropractic to be cost conscious and to exercise discretion, consistent with good chiropractic care, when implementing practice parameters.