Chiropractors named in Jim Black case

The three chiropractors who paid Jim Black nearly $30,000 were named today by The Charlotte Observer. One of the chiropractors, Steve Willen, was sitting on the North Carolina State Board of Chiropractic Examiners (until Tuesday, 2/20/07). Another chiropractor, Fletcher Keith, is a past Board member. The third chiropractor, Tom Brown, works in one of Keith's 5 North Carolina offices. The post from the Observer (http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/16745255.htm)

ILLICIT CASH

Court documents on Tuesday detailed illegal payments from

three chiropractors to Jim Black:

Fletcher Keith
Charlotte: Gave $8,000

Steve Willen
Greensboro: Gave $11,000

Tom Brown,
Charlotte: Gave $10,000

Another piece from the Observer, 2/21/07:
"Willen quits board seat

Tuesday's proceedings quickly rippled through the state capital. Willen resigned from the State Board of Chiropractic Examiners. Willoughby said the chiropractors cooperated and will not be charged with any crime."

So, the chiropractors will not be charged with a crime (after turning state witnesses), and, most likely, they will not be purged by their associations....life will go on, business and corruption as usual. Physical Therapist beware, and be politically active. The scenario could be played out in any state in the Union.

Britt

Comments

[Eric]

This is utopia. I used to think this way, but the insurance companies are not out to work with you or me. How many of you have gotten a raise for following their guidelines or rules/regulations, for practicing EBM? I have found in my 15 years of practice that the co-pays, and deductables have increased, with reimbursement rates decreased. Patient's are paying more out of their pockets and pay checks for benefits that used to be a perks. Now, insurance companies are reducing how many visits, what can be performed, and how much we charge because they hold all the cards/money. There are always gonna be doctors and therapists that will accept the meager reimbursement rates. So we see more patient's for less money and at more risk. Although our cost of business has increased, their preferred providers take reimbursement hits year after year. Their premium rates increase dramatically every year sometimes even by the quarter. Their deductables increase, copays increase and percentages increase. But their overhead has decreased. Have you looked at your charts/files lately and see how much paperwork is true patient information and how much is insurance related paper. We have charts that are 3/4 full of insurance junk and the rest is patient medical information. Now the insurance companies want us to use everything paperless which will benefit them not us. Where is the checks/balances. They are attempting to get the levage to put money into our accounts which sounds great but they also have the right to take money away if they feel/believe they have over paid us. How many of our offices/clinics would reduce its over head significantly if we did not have to have insurance verification, billing, collections, or reviewing their interpretation of the codes we bill for and what is to be bundled and what is global. Thats why insurance companies are diversied now and not just insurance companies. Sorry, your thoughts are utopia that will not ever work. Eric.

[David]

You present insurance the companies' motives as if they are equally weighted. In all the evidence I have seen "better outcomes" is not weighted very heavily compared to the other motivations mentioned. "Better outcomes" only seems to be a motivator when it some advertising benefit can be derived. This, I believe, will be the eventual undoing of the insurance companies' heavy influence on health care. Presently, the outcomes of the US medical system is not very good for dollars spent compared to other countries. In a more rational world, the entities that most heavily influence our system would be in for considerable blame. It might be best to wait for more evidence than a couple of instances where insurance companies consider better outcomes a significant factor before any alliances are sought. But then, things are do not always develop rationally.

[Tim Mondale]

Britt,

Back to the issue at hand. I couldn't be more in agreement with you. When will we as Physical Therapists be willing to admit that we are in a fight here with an enemy (sorry for the war language) that is willing to stop at very little to advance the cause of anti-competition and patient restriction. The whole tac of chiro's governing bodies is to self promote and half-truth legislatures into the continued boondogle that is subluxation, and chiro ownership of manipulation. We need to unite in an effort to defend and promote our use of manipulation as per the evidence. We also need to fight vigerously for the protection of the titles of physical therapy and physiotherapy, which many chiro's feel it is within their rights to mislead the public with, by using.

To hear the stories out of Indiana, Arkansas, Oregon, and more at the manipulation task force meeting at CSM was both infuriating and depressing. Against all evidence and logic these chiro. boards sucessfully resist our efforts at direct access by fighting manipulation language. Our numbers far outnumber theirs nationally but clearly our will does not.

We seem willing to sit back apathetically and wait for our numbers that practice in accordance to manipulation evidence to get sued by chiro in a drip, drip, drip fashion.

As I've said in the past we should never give up any ground to them, and fight vigerously their attempts to restrict our patients access to the highest quality of care.

By the way again congratulations to Arkansas for passing into law house bill 1216 which restricts one professional board from suing a member of another professional board. The Michael Teston debacle could not happen again in Arkansas; what about your state?