ICS ADVOCATES ON CAPITOL HILL
The Illinois Chiropractic Society made its presence known on Capitol Hill last week as ICS members and staff pushed for passage of the Chiropractic Medicare Coverage Modernization Act. While taking part in the American Chiropractic Association’s “ACA Engage” event in Washington, D.C., the ICS group met with the congressional offices of several Illinois U.S. Representatives.
The bills before the U.S. Congress are H.R. 1610 in the House of Representatives and S. 799 in the U.S. Senate. If enacted, they would allow Medicare beneficiaries full access to the current services chiropractic physicians are allowed to provide under their scope of practice as provided by individual state licensure requirements. Currently, Medicare arbitrarily limits coverage to just one chiropractic treatment.
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The legislation has been introduced during the last two congressional sessions as well, but has yet to have a committee hearing. H.R. 1610 is currently pending before the House Ways and Means Committee. The goal is to secure as many bill co-sponsors as possible to trigger a committee hearing on the bill. There are currently 152 bipartisan co-sponsors, including six from Illinois.
On January 25, 2024, Illinois chiropractic physicians Dr. Sam Wang, Dr. Cindy Howard, and Dr. Frank Vaught led the group on visits to the offices of U.S. Representatives Darin LaHood, Nikki Budzinski, Bill Foster, and Danny Davis. The doctors were joined by ICS staff Marc Abla and Ben Schwarm, and several students from National University of Health Sciences in Lombard, IL. The background and details of the bill were presented to legislative staff and requests were made for the congresspersons to sign on to the bill as co-sponsors. Though there were no firm commitments at the meetings, the group was pleased with the positive response it received. The ICS will continue to follow up with these lawmakers as well as others that were not available for last week’s meetings.
Illinois Representatives Mike Bost (IL-12), Jonathan Jackson (IL-1), Mary Miller (IL-15), Jan Schakowsky (IL-9), Brad Schneider (IL-10), and Eric Sorensen (IL-17) are already co-sponsors of H.R. 1610. Courtesy visits were also made to these offices to thank them for their support of the legislation.
All ICS members are urged to participate in this advocacy effort. Chiropractic physicians – and their patients – should contact their member of Congress and ask for support of the legislation. You can do it quickly and easily with just a few clicks by going here.
