National Medicare Conference Brings New Insights to Major Public Policy Challenges and Opportunities

Representatives from state and national chiropractic associations, chiropractic colleges, allied health professions and consumer organizations joined individual doctors, students and staff on April 24th in Washington, DC for the profession’s first National Conference on the Future of Chiropractic in Medicare.  In an information-packed day-long session, seventeen presenters covered a wide array of subjects including the new Recovery Audit Contractors program Medicare has implemented, documentation challenges, the recently concluded Medicare Demonstration Project, Medicare Savings Accounts, and reviewed the national political landscape in a wide-ranging discussion on Medicare’s political and economic future.

Hosted by the International Chiropractors Association (ICA), this historic conference focused on the political, economic and social elements surrounding Medicare and the dramatic changes facing this federal program that will ultimately be called upon to address the health care needs of more than 80 million eligible beneficiaries. Three Members of the US House of Representatives, Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA), Rep. Kathy McMorris Rogers (R-WA) and Rep. Don Manzullo, (R-IL), and Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) offered widely divergent perspectives on how national Medicare policy can and should be adjusted to meet the coming new demands, in the face of rapidly diminishing financial resources.

The Congressional speakers drove home the point of how limited Medicare’s resources were going to be as more and more seniors entered the program, and how difficult it was going to be to fairly distribute those resources over such a vast population.  Issues such as reducing medical errors, reducing administrative costs, reducing drug costs and prescription abuses and finding ways to control the costs of emerging technologies were common themes among all legislators, regardless of party.  All speakers agreed that all beneficiaries in the system would be called upon to pay a greater share of the costs.

Where the Congressional speakers diverged was on the issue of privatization, with Republicans favoring the exploration of ways and means through which Medicare beneficiaries might help finance and administer their individual care through some combination of personal and government financial support, such as a Medicare Savings Account.  Democrats seemed committed to preserving the social insurance nature of Medicare, while at the same time acknowledging that radical changes in methods were needed.

The keynote presentation at the April 24th Conference was made by The Hon. Barbara Kennelly, President and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the nation’s largest consumer grass-roots lobby group with nearly five million members.  Speaking on “The Needs and Rights of Beneficiaries and the Prospects for Medicare’s Future,”   Mrs. Kennelly spoke about the urgent need to seek sound solutions that secured the broadest possible access to benefits, on a financially sound and equitable basis, maintaining the uniform, national and publicly governed nature of the program. 

Other presentations addressed such cutting edge topics as:

• The Looming Provider Shortage and the Challenges and Opportunities for the Chiropractic Profession
• Who in Congress Will Decide the Fate of Medicare? 
• Mobilizing Chiropractic’s Patient Base
• The Role of Research in Influencing Public Policy
• The “Opt Out” Issue and the Possibilities of Private Contracting with Medicare Beneficiaries

Conference presentations also addressed the expansion of chiropractic services to include coverage for those elements necessary to provide the highest quality service to Medicare beneficiaries,  Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) hostility and the unfair targeting of chiropractic providers for overly aggressive enforcement activities, the need to educate policy makers on the highly clinical and cost effective nature of chiropractic services, and the need to mobilize patients and their families to promote a much-deserved stronger role for chiropractic in caring for the nation’s aging population. 

“It is clear that there is a massive amount of work that needs to be done to secure chiropractic’s rightful place in the Medicare program and in any national healthcare reform initiative,” said ICA President Dr. John K. Maltby.  “ICA recognizes that it will take an historic cooperative effort to achieve success, and ICA hopes that the Conference represents a first step along that path.”

Numerous priority tasks were identified during the day’s discussions and ICA hopes that a cooperative response can be undertaken to meet those needs. ICA is developing detailed summaries of all of the presentations at the April 24th Medicare Conference and will make that information available to the chiropractic profession through all means possible.  Watch ICA’s website at www.chiropractic.org for additional details.