AJCC April 2000

DC-Grassroots Effort Needed to Offset Department of Defense Recommendations
Not to Include Chiropractic Care

The Department of Defense (DoD) recently completed a congressional mandated, multi-year pilot program (“Demonstration Project”) to determine 1) the feasibility and 2) the advisability of including chiropractic care in DoD health care system.

The DoD hired a consulting firm, Birch and Davis, to compile their report and make DoD’s recommendations to Congress. The DoD report opposes the integration of chiropractic care into the DoD health care system. The DoD report claims a large cost of plans to include Chiropractic care.

The American Chiropractic Association (ACA) and the Association of Chiropractic Colleges (ACC) appointed members to the project’s Oversight Advisory Committee. These members were able to have copies of the data generated from military patients of the DC volunteer doctors at the military bases and the first two iterations of the DoD’s report that was finally given to selected members of Congress in the 2^nd week of March 2000.

The actual data generated at the military bases clearly demonstrated that 1) much higher levels of patient satisfaction were given to chiropractic care versus traditional medical care, 2) superior outcomes in every measure were statistically significant for patients receiving chiropractic care versus traditional medical care, 3) chiropractic care results in fewer hospital stays, and 4) there are significant improvements in military readiness due to large reduction in lost duty time of military personnel with chiropractic care versus traditional medical care.

The ACA and ACC hired Muse and Associated, Incorporated, a consulting firm with experience in the Congressional Budget Office and Health Care Financing Administration, to write a review of the data and recommendations for DoD to include Chiropractic care. The Muse and Associates Report suggests a savings for DoD if it included Chiropractic care.

The ACA and ACC are jointly seeking the inclusion of the necessary statutory mandate in the Fiscal Year 2001 Defense Authorization Act, which is now under consideration in the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. DCs are urged to contact their Representatives and Senators to strongly urge them to include legislative language for including Chiropractic care into the military healthcare system for FY 2001. To contact your Representative or Senator, call the Capital switchboard at 1-202-224-3121. To get specific information about the data favorable to Chiropractic, log into www.amerchiro.org/government/index.html. For further questions, contact ACA’s Department of Government Relations at 1-703-276-8800.