Texas Chiropractic Association Inflates Membership Numbers

The Texas Chiropractic Association (TCA) along with the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) filed an Amicus Brief in a lawsuit brought against the Texas Board of Chiropractic by the Texas Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (TAAOM) wherein the TAAOM is seeking to stop chiropractors from infringing upon their unique service.

In their Amicus Brief the Texas Chiropractic Association claims:

“TCA is the state’s largest chiropractic association, representing Texas’ 5,300 licensed doctors of chiropractic.”

However, according to the latest 990 forms filed in 2014 with the Internal Revenue Service the Texas Chiropractic Association has only 1600 members. This amounts to about 30% of the licensed chiropractors in Texas.

Making matters worse in regards to their claim, the TCA membership consists of several other categories of membership that do not include licensed chiropractors.

These categories include student membership, and according to reports from several individuals contacted for this article, the TCA includes students enrolled in Texas chiropractic schools as members and continues to list them as members even after their first year in practice.  

Reports have circulated for years that some chiropractic schools automatically sign their students up as members of certain state and national chiropractic trade organizations.

And this is not the first time that the ACA has been involved in inflating membership numbers to support its causes. At the Council on Chiropractic Stakeholders Meeting in Scottsdale Arizona in 2012, Dr. Mike Simone from the American Chiropractic Association stated that the ACA represents 15,000 members, 3,500 of which are students.

ACA ’s claimed membership numbers are in doubt and many believe that the ACA provided false testimony on this to National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity during hearings on renewal of recognition of the CCE. The ACA has strongly and publicly supported the CCE in their efforts to remove the phrase “without drugs and surgery” as well as marginalize subluxation in the Standards. While the ACA stated that they have 15,000 members -according to calculations derived from IRS 990 forms the ACA may have only an estimated 6000 full dues paying members. Further evidence for this are reports by Dr. Gerry Clum, Past President of the World Federation of Chiropractic that the membership dues in the WFC are based on membership numbers and that this is consistent with 6000 members in the ACA.

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In the same Amicus Brief filed on behalf of the American Chiropractic Association and the Texas Chiropractic Association the two trade organizations assert that chiropractic does not provide a unique and nonduplicative service and that the scope of chiropractic overlaps with medicine.

The ACA is a member of the Chiropractic Summit Group that includes members of the so called "Chiropractic Cartel". The Summit Group seeks to expand the scope of chiropractic practice in order to increase third party pay and classify chiropractors as physicians. 

The International Federation of Chiropractors and Organizations (IFCO) and the Chiropractic Society of Texas (CST) filed an Amicus Brief in support of the TAAOM. The IFCO and the CST are not members of the Chiropractic Summit Group.    

Click Below for More History on this Story

ACA & TCA Intervene in Texas Scope Issue

Scope Issues Continue to Plague Texas Board

Texas Chiropractic Board Sued Over Scope Expansion

Texas Board Pushes Expanded Scope