Texas Chiropractic Association Inflates Membership Numbers
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.”
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.
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
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