Chiropractors to Try Again on Bills to Permit Them Access to Hospitals

              THE TIMES June 19, 1981
Chiropractors to try again on bills
to permit them access to hospitals By SALLY REESE
Times Medical Writer
Defeated in the Louisiana House
health and welfare committee this
week, chiropractors will simply rein-troduce
their bills to give them access
to hospitals and medical laboratories,
Dr. Steven Mooring of Shreveport said
Thursday.
A bill to allow them to treat patients
in hospitals was defeated by a 6-3 vote
Monday night, although Rep. Robert
Adley, D-Bossier City, had amended it
to require that chiropractors be super-vised
by medical physicians when treat-ing
those patients.
Also defeated was a bill to replace
medical doctors with chiropractors in
two places on State Board of Chiroprac-tic
Examiners, and a bill to permit use
of hospital laboratories for chiropractic
diagnostic purposes.
Dr. Joseph Sabatier of the Louisiana
Medical Society was reported to have
told the committee the Adley amend-ment
would create an undue burden for
physicians and cause conflict.
Rep. Alphonse Jackson, D-Shreveport,
and Harry Kember, D-White
Castle, were reported to have
criticized doctors who said they were
unwilling to work with chiropractors
even if they served as supervisers.
Mooring, Northwest Louisiana chair-man
of the Chiropractic Association of
Louisiana, challenged the opposition's
claims.
Sabatier's assertion that the bill
posed conflict is unfounded, he said,
because "medical physicians and
chiropractors work closely in dealing
with patient problems in the best in-terest
of the patient."
There would be no burden on physi-cians,
he said, "because we would be
practicing within our scope of practice,
and our work would in no way interfere
with that of the medical physicians."
To a charge that the bill could be a
threat to hospital accreditation, he said:
"Across the U.S., chiropractors have
been named to hospital boards, and
hospitals are allowing use of their labo-ratory
and X-ray facilities by
chiropractors."
The intent of the bill, he said, was to
ensure that a patient received "the best
possible care."
Mooring said 1974 Louisiana legisla-tion,
which licensed chiropractors, says
no agency, municipality or institution
shall deny a person the right to
chiropractic services.
"Based on this, we feel the medical
profession and hospitals are dis-criminating
against the chiropractic
profession....
"They are denying chiropractic pa-tients
the right to enter the hospital
specifically to receive chiropractic
care.
"The hospitals and medical labora-tories
are specifically denying
chiropractors use of routine tests which
are necessary to determine need of
chiropractic services or referral to oth-er
specialties.
"The only duly licensed profession
not allowed access to hospitals and
medical labs is the chiropractic pro-fession."
The scope of practice bill dealt with
procedures that can be used by
chiropractors, he said. It was to include
standard and routine services that are
taught in the chiropractic schools "be-cause
current legislation is unduly
vague and questionable as to the legal-ity
of our performing certain services,
such as lab testing, even though these
services are performed in our offices on
a routine basis."