ICS Responds to CMS Request for Feedback
In October 2019, President Trump issued Executive Order #13890, titled “Protecting and Improving Medicare for Our Nation’s Seniors.” Section 5a of this order states “Within 1 year of the date of this order, the Secretary shall propose reforms to the Medicare program to enable providers to spend more time with patients by (a) proposing a regulation that would eliminate burdensome regulatory billing requirements, conditions of participation, supervision requirements, benefit definitions, and all other licensure requirements of the Medicare program that are more stringent than applicable Federal or State laws require and that limit professionals from practicing at the top of their profession.”
CMS Request
Following that order, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a request for feedback surrounding provider scope of practice. More specifically, CMS stated, “we need your help in identifying additional Medicare regulations which contain more restrictive supervision requirements than existing state scope of practice laws, or which limit health professionals from practicing at the top of their license.”
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As you are aware, Medicare limits chiropractic physicians’ reimbursement to manual manipulation of the spine, and this continues to create a barrier to care for a vulnerable population. We believe this Executive Order and the follow-up request for information by CMS are important steps in correcting and removing this barrier to patient choice and inequity.
As a result, the Illinois Chiropractic Society addressed this issue via letter with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last week. Dr. John Panopoulos, ICS President, pointed out clearly that chiropractic physicians perform many important medical services and “in Illinois, chiropractic physicians are not only permitted to perform these services under their scope of practice; but, in fact, their standard of care as physicians requires that they perform at minimum a history and physical exam.”
You can see our response to CMS in full here.
Petitioning regulatory bodies, both state and federal, is one of the many tasks that the Illinois Chiropractic Society regularly addresses through our advocacy efforts. Please contact the ICS with any questions about our legislative and regulatory advocacy efforts that we tackle regularly.
