Time to Take Action on Federal Medicare Coverage Bill
The Chiropractic Medicare Coverage Modernization Act has been reintroduced in the U.S. Congress and chiropractic physicians are urged to contact their Congressional Representatives and U.S. Senators and ask for support for the legislation. We have made the process of contacting your representatives as simple as ever. This process is laid out below.
The new bills are H.R. 1610 in the House of Representatives and S. 799 in the U.S. Senate. They would expand Medicare coverage for services provided by chiropractic physicians and are identical to the legislation that was introduced in the last session of Congress.
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What Should You Do?
You can send a message to your congressperson with just a few clicks.
- Click on this link
- Under H.R. 1610, click on the red “write today” tab after “DC Campaign”
- Put in your name and address
- Do the same for S. 799 by clicking on the blue “write today” tab after “DC Campaign”
Background
Once again, there is bipartisan support for the legislation, with Representatives Gregory Steube (R-FL), Brian Higgins (D-NY), Mark Alford (R-MO), and John Larson (D-CT) sponsoring the bill in the House, and Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-NY) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND) sponsoring the Senate bill. An additional 22 other congresspersons have already signed on as original co-sponsors to H.R. 1610, including Illinois’ Representative Mike Bost (R-12). Last year’s House bill had over bipartisan 150 co-sponsors, including nine from Illinois.
Currently, Medicare will only reimburse chiropractic physicians for one service — spinal manipulation – provided to Medicare patients. However, doctors are professionally bound to provide additional services to accurately diagnose a patient, resulting in undue financial hardship for patients who may not be able to pay out of pocket for all of the required services. Importantly, Medicare already pays other health care providers for these services, but Medicare requires patients to pay for these same services provided by chiropractic physicians. Therefore, the patient’s ability to choose their provider is limited. You can click on this link to review the talking points. For assistance, please contact Ben Schwarm, Director of Governmental Relations, Ben@Ilchiro.org or 217/525-1200.
