LETTERS

A chance for a win in the fight against opioid abuse

Posted 6/22/17

To the Editor:

In response to our current opioid-overdose crisis, Rhode Island citizens need to know about a bill that remains active in the Legislature.  The epidemic we confront continues its …

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LETTERS

A chance for a win in the fight against opioid abuse

Posted

To the Editor:

In response to our current opioid-overdose crisis, Rhode Island citizens need to know about a bill that remains active in the Legislature.  The epidemic we confront continues its devastating spiral with 2016 deaths exceeding those in 2015 and 2017 on track to have an even a greater loss of life. The daily news of addiction, overdose and death is a painful reality for far too many of our families. This bill would enhance citizen accessibility to “non-pharmaceutical -first” doctors. Bills S 0789 & H 6124*, address our opioid-overdose crisis.

Currently, Rhode Island’s health insurance system has 300,000+ of our citizens with zero coverage allowing access to the services of chiropractic physicians. The remaining 600,000+ have very restricted coverage. These policies have significant limitations on care and are not based on the “medical necessity of care”; the accepted responsible standard utilized across the nation.

This legislation will remove these barriers and will allow citizens to have fair coverage that will enable them to treat with chiropractic physicians: the doctors that utilize non-pharma-first treatment. The vast majorities of pain based complaints that motivate patients to seek the care of a doctor are; neck and back pain, headaches and muscle and joint pain. In Rhode Island, chiropractic physicians have been licensed since 1918 and have one of the highest safety rates of any physician providers across our nation.

This legislation creates no new law; it simply requires the enforcement of existing Rhode Island and Federal health care laws that have not been enforced.

In response to questions raised by legislators at the two hearings of the bill, the new modified Sub A version(s) was presented on 6/9/17; removing all references to fee or reimbursement issues and incorporating the recommendations by the RI Medical Society. The current bill will not add to the costs of health care; it will reduce the costs.

Contacting your legislators and requesting a floor vote for this Bill before the end of the 2017 session is now critical. Why? Because seeking health care with a doctor when one has pain should have options other than taking medications and should not become a matter of life or death.

Alan Post

Saunderstown

Alan R. Post D.C. has been in practice since 1982. He is past president of the RI & NE regional chiropractic associations and has served on the advisory boards of numerous institutions. He has been actively involved with health care reform since 2004; having served on and/or presented to numerous committees and commissions.

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