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Sponsors
No co-sponsors yet.
History
- Print number 2874a
- Amend and recommit to labor
- Referred to labor
- Referred to labor
Full text
The text isn't available here yet. Check nysenate.gov.
Sponsor's memo
Title of bill
An act to amend the workers' compensation law, in relation to chiropractic care
Purpose or general idea of bill
This bill would end years of the most blatant discriminatory regulation against the consumers of chiropractic care. Chiropractors have been paid one flat fee for all treatment services rendered to an injured worker for 31 years while all other providers, including non-doctor providers, are paid for virtually every service they perform. Chiropractors are mandated by statute to provide the same level of care to an injured worker as to a private patient, but are not reimbursed for the services - they are given only a flat "limited office visit" fee. No other state has a separate and distinct Workers' Compensation fee schedule for chiropractors. Chiropractors are not even reimbursed for a main staple of their practice, spinal adjustments (spinal manipulation). This policy forces health care consumers to consult additional providers for these services. This legislation would recognize that chiropractors provide a variety of services and to clarify that the workers' compensation system must pay for the individual modalities employed by chiropractors in rendering primary health care services to injured workers.
Summary of specific provisions
This would amend the Workers' Compensation Law to provide that the Workers' Compensation Board must reimburse chiropractors for individual services and modalities lawfully rendered by chiropractors in treatment of an injured worker. Section 4 sets forth the effective date of this amendment.
Justification
In rendering care, chiropractors -- like all other primary care practitioners -- engage in a number of individual diagnostic and treatment services and modalities. Most other primary care providers are compensated by the Workers' Compensation System for each discrete service rendered in diagnosing and treating injured workers. For example, both the medical and physical therapy fee schedule under Workers' Compensation is a number of pages long, listing and compensating the full range of individual medical services employed in caring for injured workers. Although Workers' Compensation ostensibly recognizes the panoply of chiropractic services, the fee schedule confines payment to office visits. However, there is no recognition that a variety of individual chiropractic modalities are routinely employed in accurately diagnosing and treating injured workers. This bill recognizes the full scope of chiropractic services and directs the Workers' Compensation Board to pay for individual diagnostic and treatment services and modalities rendered.
Prior legislative history
2005-2015 - Died in Labor Committee.
Fiscal implications
None.
Effective date
January 1, 2017.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.