The Professional Licensing Boards Division of the Office of Secretary of State in Georgia is proposing to adopt amendments related to Inactive Status of Licenses.
According to the Notice and the proposed rule amendment the changes for the chiropractic board rule include the adoption of the oxymoronic term "Chiropractic Medicine" which is repeated five times in the proposed rule language.
Georgia does not currently use the oxymoron "chiropractic medicine" in the statute or any of its rules though medically oriented chiropractic factions in the state have been wanting to add it for many years.
CLICK HERE to review the new rule language
In addition to the insertion of "chiropractic medicine" language in the proposed rules they also include reference to a requirement that those in Inactive Status for more than five years may be forced to take the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners (NBCE) Special Purposes Examination for Chiropractic otherwise known as the SPEC Exam.
The chiropractic medicine language comes at a pivotal time in chiropractic when so many in the profession wish to be able to prescribe drugs and do injections. Several schools now refer to their chiropractic offerings as Doctor of Chiropractic Medicine programs and the Council on Chiropractic Education has turned a blind eye to such public obfuscation despite numerous complaints by stakeholders within the profession.
The ongoing requirements that give an unfair competitive advantage to the Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE) and the NBCE have raised eyebrows among regulatory boards, legislatures and legal experts because they explicitly name one accrediting agency and one testing service (NBCE) in their language.
For example, the Colorado Office of Policy, Research and Regulatory Reform (COPRRR) has completed an evaluation of the Colorado State Board of Chiropractic Examiners (Board) as part of their Sunset Review of the Chiropractic Statute and one of their recommendations is to repeal statutory references to the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners.
According to the State of Colorado: "Naming specific organizations in statute can be problematic."
The State goes on to explain:
Organizations can change their names, they can merge with other organizations or they cease operations entirely. More problematic, however, is the fact that by naming organizations in statute, the General Assembly cedes the state’s ability to deviate from the standards established by those organizations. Additionally, these organizations are not subject to the state’s rulemaking or transparency requirements. Thus, private organizations can establish state certification standards with very little public input, transparency or state participation.
It appears the jig is up on the NBCE. The State of Colorado has figured out their scheme and has spelled out pretty clearly why the monopoly control they have is dangerous.
But the State of Colorado didn't stop there. The State actually gets to the core of the problem, one laid out by the Supreme Court of the United States in North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. FTC
"Naming NBCE creates a presumption that this is the examination to be selected. As such, the statute grants NBCE a competitive advantage over any other examination."
CLICK HERE for more on the Colorado Story
The National Board of Chiropractic Examiners (NBCE) has enjoyed a decades long monopoly on the certification and testing of chiropractic students and graduates. Over the years, state after state ceded their obligation to protect the public health of its citizens by adopting the NBCE exams as a requirement in order to become licensed.
With every state now requiring passage of NBCE exams and the majority requiring graduation from a school accredited by the Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE), the NBCE and the CCE coupled with the Federation of Chiropractic Licensing Boards (FCLB) enjoy a monopoly control of the educational, licensing and regulatory functions of the entire profession.
In fact, so pervasive is their control that the United States Department of Education's Committee on Accreditation referred to a Cartel operating within the profession, comparing this situation to the Mafia and Tony Soprano.
The Florida Board of Chiropractic Medicine, has gone so far as to completely ignore the recommendations from the Florida Department of Public Health to do away with their jurisprudence exam because they quite simply found the exam useless. Instead the Florida Board turned over the jurisprudence exam to the NBCE.
In the 2019 Legislative session the Florida Chiropractic Society led a charge to remove the "CCE Only" language from the Florida Statute only to be defeated when the Palmer, National and Keiser schools stepped in with scaremongering that the sky would fall if citizens had a choice in regards to accrediting agencies.
CLICK HERE for more on the Florida Story
According to the Notice released in Georgia, a public hearing on the proposed changes in Georgia is scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m. on March 6, 2020 at the Professional Licensing Boards Division, located at 237 Coliseum Drive, Macon, Georgia 31217 to provide the public an opportunity to comment upon and provide input into the proposed rule amendments.
At the public hearing, anyone may present data, make a statement, comment, or offer a viewpoint or argument whether orally or in writing. Lengthy statements or statements of a considerable technical or economic nature, as well as previously recorded messages, must be submitted for the official record. Oral statements should be concise and will be limited to five (5) minutes per person. Written comments are welcomed. Such written comments must be legible and signed, should contain contact information from the maker (address, telephone number, e mail address and/or facsimile number, etc.) and be actually received in the office prior to the close of business (5:30 p.m. EDT) on February 28,2020. Written comments should be addressed to La Trenda Tyler-Jones, Division Director, 237 Coliseum Drive, Macon, Georgia 31217. Comments may be submitted by fax to (478)-207-1363.
