My "point" (which you chose to edit out) was quite clear and unambiguous, and which you now, disengenueously, attempt to distort.
As for: "You are not possibly trying to assert that corrupt business practices are even nearly as common in traditional medicine than they are in sCAM providers are you?"
HMMMMMMM................
Although not my original "assertion", I will indulge you. Let's take a look at just a few this past month eek: :--------------------------
So, to answer your question:
In light of the evidence.......The only valid conclusion is: Yes
Honestly, you want to do this?
Are you sure?
Beside the fact that ANY chiropractic treatment is actually a scam since it DOESN'T work, there are (according to the Department of Labor) 53,000 chiropractors in the U.S. (
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos071.htm) and there are 567,000 physicians and surgeons (
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos074.htm), so for every ten physician cases you list, I only need to find one chiro case. Let's look at some chiro fun shall we?
"Delusional" chiropractor loses license.
James C. Burda, D.C., of Athens, Ohio, has signed a voluntary license relinquishment that permanently revokes his license to practice chiropractic. The state chiropractic board's announcement states:
"Dr. Burda made up the term "Bahlaqeem" to describe a form of treatment in which he claimed to treat individuals anytime, anywhere, who are not in his presence and without physical contact.
"The Board determined that "Bahlaqeem" is not an acceptable form of treatment according to acceptable and prevailing standards of chiropractic care and constitutes practicing beyond the scope of the practice of chiropractic.
"Dr. Burda is also unable to practice chiropractic according to acceptable and prevailing standards of care due to mental illness, specifically, Delusional Disorder, Grandiose Type. "
Burda charged $60 per 24-hour period to use mental vibrations to heal by methods that he christened "Bahlaqeem Vina" and "Bahlaqeem Jaqem." He also claimed to be able to go back in time to the moment a patient had been injured. His Web site
http://www.bahlaqeem.com, which is is still posted, states:
"This is what happens when I get a request to be treated. As soon as I get a request for vina, I think of you, the person to whom the correction is being directed, and then silently ask if you can be treated. This is a request for permission to perform vina and is done before all vina is made. If I do not get a positive answer, I stop and nothing is done at that time. I may ask again and if I get the same response I do not attempt the vina. I will communicate this to you. If, however, after asking permission for vina and a positive response is received, the vina is performed right away.
"The diagnostic procedure involves asking questions either out loud or silently as to how different bones are misaligned, twisted, rotated or displaced. Once the diagnosis is completed, the correction is made either by telling the bone to shift to its proper position or by hand-directing it. The vina is performed while thinking about the area that needs to change. This is the gift, which I have been given, my ability to tell the body to make changes."
and
"It does not matter that you call what is being done, vibrational vina or jaqem which includes the previously know maneuver where the bones are forcibly pushed back into proper position by hand or mechanical device. The result is the same: increased activity with less pain and more ability to do things. This technique is brand new and being developed every day and therefore current terms of how bones and joints, are reorganized may not be appropriate. Pain is often the result of joint disorganization and twisted or rotated bones, all of which can be affected by what I can do."
Comment from Dr. Stephen Barrett: Much of chiropractic is based on delusions that spinal misalignments ("subluxations") are the underlying cause of disease and that correcting them can restore health. The Ohio Board's action indicates that chiropractic delusions that are not "standard" or "prevalent" may be unacceptable.
Workers' Comp costs reduced in California.
The Workers Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau (WCIRB) of California has reported that since a reform bill (SB228) took effect, the utilization of chiropractic services for workers' compensation has dropped 77% and the use of physical therapy services had dropped 61%. SB228, which took effect on January 1, 2004, limits employees to no more than 24 chiropractic and 24 physical therapy visits per industrial injury. The billópart of a 6-bill package intended to curb runaway costsówas passed in the wake of reports that the costs of treating back strains and sprains for injured workers with physical medicine services, such as manipulations, exercise, hot and cold packs and massage were greater when the care was directed by chiropractors than when managed by physicians. However, it is not clear the extent to which the decreases are attributable to the SB 228 limitations rather than other reform provisions such as new utilization guidelines and the creation of medical utilization networks. [2006 Legislative Cost Monitoring Report. San Francisco: WCIRBCalifornia, released Sept 27, 2006]
###
"Personal belief" vaccination exemptions lead to higher pertussis rates.
A study of immunization requirements has concluded that states that permit "personal belief" exemptions and/or easily grant exemptions are associated with higher rates of exemptions and whooping cough infections. All states allow medical exemptions, 48 permit exemptions based on religious objections, but 19 also allow exemptions based on philosophical or other personal beliefs. Some states make it easy for parents to claim an exemption by simply signing a prewritten statement on the school immunization form. Others make it harder by requiring a signature from a local health official, a personally written letter, notarization, or annual renewal. The study compared the ease of getting exemptions, the rates of nonmedical exemptions at school, and data on disease incidence for people aged 18 years or younger. [Omer SB. Nonmedical exemptions to school immunization requirements: Secular trends and association of state policies with pertussis incidence. JAMA 296:1757-1763, 2006]
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/296/14/1757?etoc
Delicensed chiropractor sentenced for insurance fraud.
Former chiropractor Markell D. Boulis, has been sentenced to 41 months imprisonment and ordered to pay restitution of $1,100,000 Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation and ten insurance companies that he and two of his companies cheated in a fraudulent billing scheme between 1999 and 2003. Boulis was also ordered to pay restitution to Medicare and the Internal Revenue Service. In April, Boulis and two of his companies, Practice Solutions, Inc., and National Insurance Auditors, LLC, pled guilty to one count of health care fraud. Court documents indicate that Boulis set up a "practice management" consulting business for chiropractors about three months after the state of Pennsylvania suspended his chiropractor's license. Practice Solutions, Inc. would sponsor "practice building" seminars for chiropractors throughout the country. During the seminars, participants were told that National Insurance Auditors, LLC, was a separate, independent company comprised of "experts" in the review of patient records. This company could help attendees identify "lost" income resulting from services which had not been properly reimbursed by insurers due to incorrect coding, or a failure to bill for the services. Chiropractors were encouraged to contract with National Insurance Auditors, LLC for "back-billing" services as a means to generate additional income. As part of the scheme, Boulis's associates promised to audit the chiropractors' records to look for services that had been performed but not billed. However, government investigators found that the auditors merely copied the records and the billing company billed for new or additional services that had not been performed. [Chiropractic consultant sentenced for defrauding private insurance companies and the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation. USDOJ news release, Sept 19, 2006]
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/ohs/Press/09-19-06.pdf
"Alternative" cancer treatments fail to stop cancer progression.
Researchers have found that cancer patients who chose "alternative" therapies instead of standard treatment tended to have increased recurrence and death. The analysis included 33 patients:
**Of 11 who initially refused surgery, 10 developed disease progression.
**Of 3 who refused adequate lymph node sampling, 1 developed nodal recurrence.
**Of 10 who refused local control procedures, 2 developed local recurrences and 2 died of metastatic disease.
**By refusing chemotherapy, 9 patients increased their estimated 10-year mortality rate from 17% to 25%.
The authors concluded: "Alternative therapies used as primary treatment for breast cancer are associated with increased recurrence and death. Homeopathy instead of surgery resulted in disease progression in most patients." [Chang EY and others. Outcomes of breast cancer in patients who use alternative therapies as primary treatment. American Journal of Surgery 192:471-473, 2006]
High court agrees that subluxation-based chiropractor recommended excessive care.
The Supreme Court of South Australia has upheld a decision by the Chiropractors Board of South Australia that George Michael Belle, who operates the Acacia Chiropractic Centre in Morphett Vale, had engaged in unprofessional conduct in his management of a patient who consulted him for back pain in 2002. The evidence showed that Belle had treated her back pain for three visits but proposed a long-term "corrective care" program of neck care that was inappropriate because it was "insufficiently tailored to her individual circumstances and the number of treatments proposed . . . was excessive." The judge concluded:
"The effect of the Board's finding is that the appellant was not so much concerned with treating Mrs Hill's low back pain in three to six treatments as with promoting the corrective care plan to cure her postural curvature by a régime of treatments requiring 88 visits at a cost of $2,692. . . . The appellant's conduct was clearly unprofessional. There is no basis for disturbing this finding of the Board."
The judge also upheld the Board's conclusion that Belle had acted unprofessionally by making disparaging remarks about orthopedists and physical therapists. Chirobase has additional information about the case and a link to the judge's ruling.
http://www.chirobase.org/08Legal/belle.html Shortly before the ruling was issued, Belle failed in an attempt to get elected to the chiropractic board.
YAWN.
But let's get to the biggest one of all...
The latest OIG report on chiropractic available here:
oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-09-02-00530.pdf and pro-chiro account here: (look, I don't even quote the WCA!
)
http://www.chiroweb.com/archives/23/16/11.html
From
http://www.ncahf.org/digest05/05-27.html :
"OIG reports chiropractic overpayment. The Office of the Inspector General has concluded that in 2001, the U.S. Government paid chiropractors $285 million for services that should not have been billed to Medicare. The questionable payments amounted to 57% of what Medicare spent on chiropractic services that year. Chiropractors are entitled to payment for spinal manipulation for active therapy for certain conditions, but not for "maintenance care." (Under the Medicare program, active therapy is treatment that provides "reasonable expectation of recovery or improvement of function" and maintenance care is "a treatment plan that seeks to prevent disease, promote health, and prolong and enhance the quality of life; or therapy that is performed to maintain or prevent deterioration of a chronic condition." The improper payments included $186 million for maintenance and $24 million for manipulation of other areas or other treatments such as massage. The OIG report concluded that (a) about 40% of chiropractic services to Medicare patients are for maintenance care; (b) as chiropractic care extends beyond 12 treatments in a year, it becomes increasingly likely that individual services are medically unnecessary; and (c) lack of necessity increases even more significantly after 24 treatments. [Chiropractic Services in the Medicare Program: Patient Vulnerability Analysis. OIG Report #OEI-09-0200530, June 2005] Many chiropractors advise lifetime periodic spinal examinations and adjustments for what they call "preventative maintenance." Because "maintenance care" lacks a plausible rationale and has never been proven beneficial, insurance plans do not knowingly pay for it. The Medicare overpayment rate may improve because as of October 1, 2004, chiropractors must specify on their claims forms whether active or maintenance care was rendered. "
I love the finding "the strong correlation between the number of services a beneficiary receives and the likelihood a service is not medically necessary". They are close, actually none of the treatments are "medically
necessary", but the report is a good start.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN - notice the latest in our line of freaks, cheats, and snake-oil salesmen - the chiropractor. Yep, step right up and see how as each of his arguments falls (in this thread - chiropractors questioning potassium supplements in patients on diuretics, chiropractors knowledge of anatomy and the question of that knowledge indicating that the chiro is the better practitioner
, the use of DCs as basic science instructors in chiropractic college, the role of the chiropractor in primary care and their utter lack of preparation to do so, and now an assertion that physicians are bigger frauds than chiropractors) he changes the subject. Neat huh!
- H
You see, good does come out of sharing ideas!
