Paul Lambert - Lobbyist for Florida Chiropractic Association - Testimony before the Florida House Health Quality Subcommittee
Lobbyist
Florida Chiropractic Association
Testimony Before the Florida House Health Quality Subcommittee
March 19, 2019
CLICK HERE for a video of Lambert's Testimony
Thank you Madam Chair and members of the Committee and Representative Santiago. With all due respect we have to oppose this amendment becasue even though it takes the really bad things out of the bill uh, foreign licensure of chiropractors with substandard education, the approval of chiropractic schools by the board who have no expertise, the allowance of licensure of doctors from other states who haven't taken the full examination, those are taken out by this and that's good, we appreciate that.
But in essence, what the bill does is rearrange the furniture in the room but doesn't accomplish anything more.
Now it deletes the name of the accrediting agency for chiropractic education, that's the Council on Chiropractic Education and substitutes that with an agency that's approved or recognized by the US office or the US Department of Education or the Council on Higher Education Accreditation.
Now, the Council on Chiropractic Education happens to be approved or recognized by both of those organizations. The US Department of Education approves accreditors for the purposes of federal law. If a school wants to have student loans or federal grants they have to be approved, the accrediting agency has to be approved by the US Office of Education.
The private one is for schools that want to achieve even higher quality of education.
Now when I pulled down the list of accrediting agencies approved by the Department of Education I find that every profession licensed by the state of Florida whether its health or non health has one accrediting agency approved by the Department of Education. One.
When I look at the list from the website on the Council on Higher Education Accreditation they have the same ones listed for every profession.
In other words, every profession licensed in the state of Florida, not just the chiropractic profession, every one whether its health or non health has one accrediting agency. And so if, if there's others who want to become, meet those high standards required of approval as an accrediting agency and they are tough standards.
When I looked at them I didn't even bother to try and print it out hundreds of pages what they have to go through.
And so other than if they want, its such a high hurdle that only one in every profession has had the wherewithal to do it. So changing the, dropping the name, Council on Chiropractic Education and just replacing it with just the description that you have to be approved by one of the other uh, uh, US Department or the Council uh doesn't really accomplish anything. It rearranges the furniture.
So the question is why, why is this amendment, why is a bill needed? I think you're gonna hear the, the testimony of Presidents of two of the three chiropractic colleges in Florida that don't have a problem with anything. They don't see a need for a change. And the third college doesn't see the need for a change either but I'll let them speak for themselves. And with that Madam Chair I'll accept any questions that the members may have.
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Lambert's Second round of testimony
CLICK HERE for video of testimony
Thank you Madam Chair, members of the Committee again and with all due respect to Representative Santiago I want to clarify one point and that is Chapter 460 regulating chiropractic is not the only of the medical statutes that specifies the name of the accrediting agency.
Of the six physician statutes, the osteopathic statute at 459.0055 specifies the American Osteopathic Association, the podiatric statute at section 461.006 specifies the Council on Podiatric Education of the American Podiatric Medical Association and a number of the other medical statutes that are not physician statutes do the same thing.
Now, the ones that don't use the type of language that's in the bill as amended, that is they have to be accredited by an agency approved either the DOE or the Council on Higher Education Recognition. Um, and even though those other statutes that don't specify and have either the DOE or CHEA as they call it uh, requirement, we still only have one accrediting agency for every profession.
So in essence, I get back to saying the bill as amended is creating a difference without a distinction. It doesn't really do anything more than what it is today.
I don't know why we need it and uh, so I appreciate the attention the media has given and I'm open to any questions Madam Chair
