NYCC President Nicchi Supports Scope Expansion in New York

According to minutes of the meeting, Dr. Frank Nicchi President of New York Chiropractic College (NYCC) attended and participated in the July 17, 2014 meeting of the New York State Board of Chiropractic. Nicchi attended along with Michael Mestan NYCC Provost, Thomas Ventimiglia NYCC Post Graduate Dean and four NYCC students. 

Louis Lupinacci DC, President of the New York State Chiropractic Association was also present. No representative of the New York Chiropractic Council was in attendance according to the minutes. 

According to the minutes Dr. Nicchi gave a presentation to the Chiropractic Board on how NYCC is striving for cultural authority. According to the minutes Nicchi discussed why New York’s chiropractic scope of practice needs change including that NYCC’s educational and clinical competencies are more than what New York State allows in a chiropractor’s scope of practice.

Nicchi assured the Board that NYCC “can and will supply any information regarding curricula to support scope change.”       

Nicchi joins a growing list of Chiropractic College President’s who are throwing their school’s weight behind scope change throughout the United States and internationally. Recently, The President’s of Western States and National issued letters supporting scope change to include the use of drugs in Wisconsin.  

According to the minutes of the Board meeting, the New York State Chiropractic Association (NYSCA) has a committee with a bill they hope to submit to the joint task force addressing changes to the scope of practice. 

NYSCA has been in merger negotiations with the New York Chiropractic Council for several years and such a merger is believed to be a cover by NYSCA for pushing through scope change in the state. Without the support of the New York Chiropractic Council NYSCA would most likely not be able to pass any change to the scope.

During the Board meeting the subject of DOT physicals came up and Dr. Louis Luppinaci (President of the New York State Chiropractic Association) stated that there have been five years of discussions regarding scope change going on. Lupinacci stated: 

“The Association has attended the last few board meetings and the association is working to initiate the change in scope that is needed.”

NYSCA has been telling New York Council members that merger efforts between the associations are not related to NYSCA’s push for scope changes and that they do not need to worry about this.

According to the minutes, the chiropractic board itself has already been in discussions with Deputy Commissioner Lentivech and the Office of Counsel with regards to chiropractors’ education and training that qualifies them to perform DOT exams.

Anna Reid, a lay member of the board of chiropractic commented that scope of practice has been discussed at every meeting since she joined the board over 5 years ago and suggested that the reason nothing  was changing is that the two associations “are not working together to address these scope issues.”

NYSCA has stated its desire to see merger between the two state associations take place before the end of the year.