California Doings

[Guest guest]

Hi

 

I wanted to inform our profession of some developments that are

occurring in California.

 

There are large amount of bills that have been introduced in

California that affect our profession. As a newly elected board

member of the California State Oriental Medical Association (and an

even more recently elected as treasurer), we just had a board

meeting where the following bills were discussed with Bill Mosca

from AIMS. After discussing the bills, I will give a brief overview

of what went on at the CSOMA board meeting on 3/6/05.

 

AB-681: Work Comp medical fee schedule (Vargas)

 

This bill will freeze workers comp rates at 5% below the 12/31/2003

rates until 2010. While this may sound bad on the surface –

reduction in reimbursements without any raises for the next 5 years –

the reality is that the likeliest thing to happen between now and

then is further reduction in fees. This rate is the current rate and

while it precludes raises until 2010, it prevents the far more

likely further reduction in fees. This is generally positive for the

profession in California and we will support it.

 

The following five bills were put forward by Leland Yee, speaker pro

tem of the assembly. Connie Taylor, the president of CSOMA, Yolanda

Marin-Sandoval, the executive director, and I met with Assemblyman

Yee on 3/7/05 to discuss them.

 

AB-1113: Diagnostic Authority

 

This bill would specifically authorize acupuncturists to diagnose

for the use of performing or prescribing the use of acupuncture,

herbs, massage, and most of our scope of practice. This bill would

be great. The problem is that the California Medical Association

will vigorously oppose it because they believe the word " diagnosis "

should only be the purview of medical doctors. While this is very

positive for the profession, the bill itself is quite vague (but

will probably become less so). This is a big fight, but with a good

prize at the end. We will support this bill.

 

AB-1114: Continuing Education

 

This bill would increase the number of CEU's required from 30 to 50

hours every two years with 5 of them to be dedicated to public

health and safety issues. This is a direct response to the Little

Hoover Commission's report. It is a little less than their

recommendation but certainly in the ball park. Generally, we are for

this bill, simply because it is a quite benign version of the LHC's

recommendations and it would be political suicide to oppose it. It

is likely that in negotiations the 5 hour requirement will be raised

and we are hoping for 10 hours of directed CEU's.

 

AB-1115: Acupuncture Assistants

 

This bill would authorize the California Acupuncture Board to

establish requirements for a certification program for acupuncture

assistants in California. Even though we would probably be for such

a program, this bill is incredibly vague. Our discussions with Lee

did not yield much in the way of specificities. One of the things

that did come up was that this would probably not include needle

removal in the duties that an acupuncture assistant could perform. I

don't know about anyone else, but I would think that would have to

be a basic task they could perform in order to be truly useful to

the profession. There weren't any specifics on what kind of training

they would require or what duties would be allowed. We are opposed

unless amended.

 

AB-1116: Postgraduate residency

 

This bill would establish a postgraduate residency. This probably

comes from the LHC which stated it as more of a possibility than a

recommendation. The bill basically gives the CAB the reins to

establish the program and the bill is incredibly vague with no

direction for number of hours. There is no known justification for

this residency. As such we will be opposing it. Word on the street

is the council of colleges is very opposed to this as well.

 

AB-1117: " Asian " Medicine

 

This bill changes the word " Oriental " to " Asian " in all state laws.

This is probably to help shore up some of Yee's constituency. We are

tending to say this is an immaterial bill and therefore we won't

oppose it or actively support it. Word has it that the council of

colleges will be opposing it.

 

The next two bills were sponsored by AIMS.

 

AB-1549: Work Comp QME's (Koretz)

 

This bill will allow acupuncturists to be Qualified Medical

Examiners under the Workers Comp system. This would have no effect

on our ability to bill within the workers comp system. It does allow

members of our profession who wish to become QME's (with 300 hours

of training) to be able to perform compensation evaluations. This

bill puts us on equal footing with psychologists, optometrists,

dentists, podiatrists, and DC's. Again, it will not be necessary to

be a QME in order to bill workers comp. This is generally a helpful

bill for our profession and allows us to be more integrated within

the workers comp system. We will support it.

 

SB-536: Scope of Practice (Alarcon)

 

This bill will specifically state that we are allowed to perform

manual therapy and myofascial release as used in western terms and

treatment procedures. This bill has come about due to rejection of

treatment codes involving manual therapy and myofascial release from

insurance companies. They state that these modalities are not within

our scope of practice, and no other codes can be use for these

modalities. This bill will overcome this rejection from insurance

companies. It is generally positive for our profession and we will

support it.

 

So those are the major bills we are looking at today. There are a

number of other bills that may evolve into bills that affect us; if

that happens we will keep you informed.

 

The CSOMA board met on 3/6/05. This was the first meeting after

election of several new board members, including myself. We

established a strategic planning committee to develop a 2 year

detailed strategy with a less detailed 5 year plan. This process

will take the greater part of this year. We maintained the same

executive committee with Connie Taylor as President, Jeannie Kang as

Vice-president, Marc Sklar as Secretary, and myself as the new

treasurer. My goal is to streamline financial operations and

institute new ways of looking at the data in order to facilitate

appropriate decision making. I will be researching financial

planning and specific ratios for membership organizations. We also

discussed the next issue of California Journal of Oriental Medicine

and the status of Expo North. Both sound very exciting, so be sure

to join CSOMA for your issue of CJOM and join us at Expo North in

San Francisco April 28-May 1, 2005. For further information about

CSOMA check our website at www.csomaonline.org.

 

If you have any further questions on any of these topics feel free

to contact me or CSOMA.

 

Greg Sperber

 

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Dr. Greg Sperber, BMBS (MD), MTOM, MBA, L.Ac.

Treasurer, California State Oriental Medicine Association

Diplomate in Chinese Herbology (NCCAOM)

Diplomate in Acupuncture (NCCAOM)

Diplomate in Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM)

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