Texas Board to Consider Requiring Taking of Blood Pressure Prior to all Chiropractic Services

According to the Agenda for the Rules Committee Meeting on November 13, 2014 the Texas Board of Chiropractic Examiners (TBCE) will be holding a discussion and consideration to propose an amendment to Rule 75.2 to require all DCs to take and record blood pressure prior to providing any services.

The Board allegedly received a rule petition from a “concerned citizen” which noted that the Board’s rules had no specific provision that explicitly required the taking of blood pressure prior to rendering services. 

Texas chiropractors are strongly encouraged to consider the risk management implications of being required to take blood pressure on each patient prior to rendering chiropractic care.   

The TBCE has had a busy and tumultuous few years as it has battled to expand the scope of chiropractic practice in the state only to be hampered by several lawsuits to try and stop them. In fact, these lawsuits and one additional one brought by a practitioner are also on the Agenda for the November 13, 2014 meeting.

However, any discussion of the status of those lawsuits may be done undercover and in closed “Executive” sessions so that licensed chiropractors in the state of Texas will not be privy to decisions of the Board that effect their licenses.  

In addition to their recent attempts to broaden the scope, the TBCE has requested funding for chiropractic board investigators to carry guns.

In a meeting last February, TCBE Executive Director, Yvette Yarbrough discussed at length the apparent “need” that the Texas Board has for armed police support.  Evidently, as outlined in her in-depth analysis, $366,800 was needed to fund two more field investigators that carry guns, $10,000 for pay raises for key employees, and for an administrative assistant that would support Yarbrough directly because she is bogged down with administrative work. Ultimately, this would give 30% of their employees a 25% pay raise and increase their 13-person team by roughly 20% to meet their need for “peace officers.” As was stated in the ending remarks of the testimony, this is not only unnecessary it is also bad business. If all of American businesses were run the way that the TBCE is, we’d all be “in trouble” one key spokesperson remarked.  

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