How did KY chiropractors end up in middle of debate about reopening during pandemic?
Patients signed an online petition, saying why they think Life Without Fear, a chiropractic office in Lexington, should remain open during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Chiropractic care is important for many to remain free,” said one.
“I’m in a crucial time of getting my body adjusted,” said another.
“I do not think it’s in mine or anybody’s best interest to rely on pain medications,” another said. “Please sign to keep chiropractic care opened.”
Kentucky is the only state so far to mandate the closure of chiropractic offices during COVID-19, Annette Bernat, a spokeswoman for the American Chiropractic Association in Arlington, Va., said Friday.
“They should reopen in Kentucky,” said Dr. Mateo Franco with Life Without Fear Chiropractic.
He said he has talked to chiropractors in several hard-hit states on how they are conducting business “and we believe we have the capability to keep our patients and staff safe with the federal guidelines, things such as limiting the amount of people in the office at one time and limiting contact as much as possible, keeping everything sanitized, all those things.”
The more than 1,000 Kentucky chiropractors, health care professionals who focus on the diagnosis and treatment of neuromuscular disorders, with an emphasis on treatment through manual adjustment and manipulation of the spine, are trying to reopen their offices.
They are not medical doctors.
Gov. Andy Beshear last month originally asked health care facilities to stop performing all “non-essential” procedures, but the governor said he had to turn his request into an order after some groups thought they should be an exception, including chiropractors.
Beshear said a group of chiropractors had been “exceedingly difficult.”
He stressed that he must do everything he can to limit human-to-human contact as deaths to the virus continue in the state.
Chiropractors looked this week to the state legislature to help them. But this year’s law-making session ended Wednesday without action in the Senate on a coronavirus relief bill that would have put chiropractors back to work.
Beshear took issue with the bill, saying it would ultimately be up to the Kentucky Department of Public Health to determine when things reopen.
Rep. Kevin D. Bratcher, R-Louisville, pushed the legislation. He wrote on his Facebook page Thursday that its demise was “disappointing.”
“Personally, I have never been to a chiropractor but constituents in my district (GE workers, cops, firefighters, nurses) are all pleading to have them open for emergency treatment,” he wrote.
Most people responding to Bratcher’s message agreed but one asked, “Chiropractic services are needed but at what expense? Can they guarantee someone would not be infected by perhaps another patient previously seen? Even my doctor’s offices are not seeing patients.”
Kent Helms is director of the Louisville-based Commonwealth Chiropractic Alliance, a non-profit he started up three years to lobby the state legislature for about 40 chiropractors.
“We’re drafting a letter to the governor in the hopes he will reconsider. We want to tell him why chiropractic offices should be open,” said Helms.
Helms said the closings are particularly hard on acute care patients who are not getting the proper therapy.
“My fear is that some will have to resort to opioids to manage their pain but that could lead to addictions and other long-term issues.”
Chiropractors are using some telehealth to treat patients, such as informing them of exercises and stretching moves, said Helms, “but we are a hands-on profession.”
Helms said chiropractors need to convince the governor that they could follow the same rules as hospitals dealing with patients with proper protective gear and guidelines.
Helms provided the Herald-Leader with a copy of an email Dr. Jeff Smith, president of the Kentucky Board of Chiropractic Examiners, sent out March 20 to chiropractors, informing them of why they had to close.
Efforts to reach Smith for comment were not successful.
Smith said his board initially was under the impression that chiropractors “were exempt from closure due to being ‘health care.’”
But he said the office of inspector general in the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services, which regulates and licenses health care facilities, informed him that chiropractors must close their office by 5 p.m. March 20.
Smith said the board disagreed but was told that “the governor viewed us as a public-facing business, having contact with our patients that could not abide by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) guidelines and we were ordered to close.”
“We know this is going to produce tremendous hardship on our patients and other medical facilities that will now have to see our patients plus the COVID-19 patients.,” said Smith. “Not to mention the financial hardship on you as doctors.
“Chiropractors can play a vital part as primary care doctors in relieving the strain on medical facilities and we are doing our very best to convey this message.
Dr. Nick Payne, executive director of Kentucky Association of Chiropractors with a part-time practice in Florence, said the closings of the offices are “unfortunate.”
“We have thorough education, training, licenses, experience and expertise to do our job in a safe manner with our patients,” he said.
Payne said his group has had conversations with numerous state officials about the closed offices in the last four weeks, “but there has been no movement yet.”
He noted that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has said chiropractors are essential health care service providers.
In a letter in early March to the homeland security department, the American Chiropractic Association said, “Chiropractors are primary-contact health care providers who provide essential care, including (but not limited to) managing acute and urgent musculoskeletal conditions..
“These services are critical for managing cases that otherwise could end up in emergency rooms, worsening an already difficult situation.”
