Cam Law https://www.camlawblog.com/ Complementary & Alternative Medicine Law Blog Mon, 08 Apr 2019 02:56:02 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3&lxb_maple_bar_source=lxb_maple_bar_source https://camlaw.lexblogplatformthree.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/797/2018/12/cropped-favicon-01-32x32.png Cam Law https://www.camlawblog.com/ 32 32 Even More Healthcare Posts at the Cohen Healthcare Law Group Blog https://www.camlawblog.com/articles/health-trends/even-more-healthcare-posts-at-the-michael-h-cohen-law-group-healthcare-fda-law-blog/ Fri, 03 Apr 2015 14:00:48 +0000 http://localhost/blog/2015/04/03/even-more-healthcare-posts-at-the-michael-h-cohen-law-group-healthcare-fda-law-blog/ For regular readers of the CAM Law Blog, we’re adding new articles to our updated blog on our law firm website. For more details, see the Cohen Healthcare Law Group Blog. You’ll find articles on topics such as: medical spa legal issues telemedicine laws FDA regulation of mobile medical apps medical device regulatory questions dietary supplement claims and... Continue Reading

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For regular readers of the CAM Law Blog, we’re adding new articles to our updated blog on our law firm website.

For more details, see the Cohen Healthcare Law Group Blog.

You’ll find articles on topics such as:

  • medical spa legal issues
  • telemedicine laws
  • FDA regulation of mobile medical apps
  • medical device regulatory questions
  • dietary supplement claims and labeling
  • nanotechnology law
  • healthcare legal trends
  • claims and labeling issues affecting cosmetics companies
  • biotech legal issues
  • other hot topics in healthcare and FDA legal strategy

Contact us with any questions.

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Physicians and chiropractors navigate functional medicine legal issues https://www.camlawblog.com/articles/functional/physicians-and-chiropractors-navigate-functional-medicine-legal-issues/ Wed, 28 May 2014 13:17:40 +0000 http://localhost/blog/2014/05/28/physicians-and-chiropractors-navigate-functional-medicine-legal-issues/ Physicians, naturopathic medical doctors, chiropractors, nutritionists, psychologists, and other healthcare providers must navigate legal and liability rules to successfully practice functional medicine. Functional medicine is an approach to promoting health and vitality through prevention, early assessment, and improved management of complex, chronic disease by intervening at multiple levels to correct core clinical imbalances, and therefore... Continue Reading

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Physicians, naturopathic medical doctors, chiropractors, nutritionists, psychologists, and other healthcare providers must navigate legal and liability rules to successfully practice functional medicine.


Functional medicine is an approach to promoting health and vitality through prevention, early assessment, and improved management of complex, chronic disease by intervening at multiple levels to correct core clinical imbalances, and therefore restore each patient’s functionality.

Organizations such as the Institution for Functional Medicine and the American Functional Medicine Association teach and promote the development of functional medicine among practitioners including medical doctors, naturopathic physicians, chiropractors, and others.

According to the Institute for Functional Medicine:

Functional medicine addresses the underlying causes of disease, using a systems-oriented approach and engaging both patient and practitioner in a therapeutic partnership. It is an evolution in the practice of medicine that better addresses the healthcare needs of the 21st century. By shifting the traditional disease-centered focus of medical practice to a more patient-centered approach, functional medicine addresses the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms. Functional medicine practitioners spend time with their patients, listening to their histories and looking at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease. In this way, functional medicine supports the unique expression of health and vitality for each individual.

Some say that functional medicine focuses on interactions between the environment and the gastrointestinal, endocrine, and immune systems.

Why do functional medicine doctors face legal challenges?

Functional medicine can be considered part of integrative medicine, with its focus on patient-centered care, review of lifestyle and overall health as well as disease, and integration of conventional care with complementary and alternative medicine, including dietary supplements. The approach is holistic and looks to inclusion of body, mind, and spirit.

The legal issues faced by functional medicine practitioners are similar to those faced by integrative medicine doctors and other integrative health care practitioners generally – as well as those arising when entrepreneurs build medical spas, aesthetic medical practices, collaborative practices such as those between medical doctors and chiropractors, and even concierge medicine and telemedicine providers. These include: standard of care / malpractice / informed consent; concern about potential medical board discipline for medical practices considered by experts designated by the medical board as not widely practiced in the profession; concern about scope of practice (for example, when a chiropractor practices functional medicine); legal issues around credentialing healthcare providers; and, where group practices of multi-disciplinary practices are involved, concern about anti-kickback and fee-splitting legal issues.

Contact a healthcare lawyer experienced with setting up a functional medicine or integrative medicine practice to strategize about reducing liability exposure, while building a healthcare clinical care team that truly supports patient care.
The Michael H. Cohen Law Group provides San Francisco / Bay Area California healthcare law and FDA legal expertise. Contact our functional medicine lawyers today.

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Stem cell therapies engender changing regulatory environment https://www.camlawblog.com/articles/new-regulation/stem-cell-therapies-engender-changing-regulatory-environment/ Wed, 05 Mar 2014 14:11:20 +0000 http://localhost/blog/2014/03/05/stem-cell-therapies-engender-changing-regulatory-environment/ Accelerating technologies are changing the regulatory environment to accommodate novel approaches to treating disease–stem cell laws being a case in point. We’ve published several posts and expect to expand these in coming days. Look for: Stem cell laws and regulations: FDA regulation of stem cell therapies Court upholds FDA’s legal authority to regulate stem cell... Continue Reading

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Accelerating technologies are changing the regulatory environment to accommodate novel approaches to treating disease–stem cell laws being a case in point.

We’ve published several posts and expect to expand these in coming days. Look for:

The Michael H. Cohen Law Group in Los Angeles, California provides healthcare regulatory, corporate, and litigation legal counsel.

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Acupuncture lawsuits rare but expert witnesses may help https://www.camlawblog.com/articles/malpractice-and-risk-management/acupuncture-lawsuits-rare-but-expert-witnesses-may-help/ Wed, 08 Jan 2014 02:47:30 +0000 http://localhost/blog/2014/01/08/acupuncture-lawsuits-rare-but-expert-witnesses-may-help/ Although acupuncture malpractice may be rare, experts can be deployed to help mitigate liability (for defendants) or make the liability case (for plaintiffs). One such expert is Anthony Von der Muhll, L.Ac., DNBAO. Anthony writes:   Anthony Von der Muhll, L.Ac., DNBAO, has served as an expert witness in civil litigation, and for the California... Continue Reading

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Although acupuncture malpractice may be rare, experts can be deployed to help mitigate liability (for defendants) or make the liability case (for plaintiffs).

One such expert is Anthony Von der Muhll, L.Ac., DNBAO.

Anthony writes:

 

Anthony Von der Muhll, L.Ac., DNBAO, has served as an expert witness in civil litigation, and for the California Department of Consumer Affairs’ Acupuncture Board in disciplinary cases. He is available for written opinions, depositions and testimony in civil litigation. Contact us for more information.


In addition to nine years of clinical practice, his expert witness credentials include his professorship at the Five Branches University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, where he has served as an Associate Professor and Clinic Instructor at all levels of training, including Clinic Safety and Orientation and Professional Ethics. He has co-taught Continuing Education classes for the California Acupuncture Board in “Recognition and Management of Serious Medical Conditions for Acupuncturists in Primary Care.” 

Experts can sway the jury one way or another in a malpractice case, so it’s good to be able locate one specific to the case (medicine, chiropractic, acupuncture, etc.).

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Relationships are transcendental and compelling https://www.camlawblog.com/articles/health-trends/relationships-are-transcendental-and-compelling/ Fri, 20 Dec 2013 11:56:03 +0000 http://localhost/blog/2013/12/20/relationships-are-transcendental-and-compelling/ When I began studying energy healing and morphing from my career as a Wall Street lawyer into a legal academic, then medical academic, then healthcare & FDA attorney, I could not have imagined the way all these threads would integrate professionally and in being. There is a lot of buzz right now about humanity stepping into the... Continue Reading

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When I began studying energy healing and morphing from my career as a Wall Street lawyer into a legal academic, then medical academic, then healthcare & FDA attorney, I could not have imagined the way all these threads would integrate professionally and in being.

There is a lot of buzz right now about humanity stepping into the "Fifth Dimension."  What exactly is this – other than a movie with Bruce Willis and these beings who are clearly wearing Hollywood blue make-up?

When I wrote my books, Beyond Complementary Medicine and Future Medicine, I felt I had to disguise my experiences so as to maintain an academic voice — and to remain pristine in what my physician division director at Harvard Medical School called, "kosher l’Harvard."  And so I wrote about shamanic healing and the comparison between medical doctors and shamans, in a more objective way. The disguise worked, the academic publishers were happy, and I served on Harvard Medical School faculty for five years.

The cat is out of the bag now, though, with my new demo reel in which I talk more openly about having mystical experiences, and of these being the impetus for my scholarly work on law, medicine, and regulation of complementary, alternative and integrative medicine (including laws governing energy medicine and energy healing).

Recently, I entered into a new relationship.  It was a doorway to the Fifth Dimension – or as I understand it, into opening my heart in a new way to all beings.

Whatever ultimately happens with this particular romantic assignment on the physical level, what I experience at another frequency of consciousness is a gateway into the most beautiful flowering of divine love in a way appropriate to this time and opening that is available more broadly to us humans.  It is a doorway through which ascension is possible, not in the ether but here and now: in the recognition that every person is a form of the Beloved, and that what one feels for the sweet beloved in the personal dimension is possible as love for all beloveds.

What exactly happened was that several dates into the relationship, I was meditating or going to sleep, and I felt a light permeate my body.  When I say a light, that is an understatement.  The Hindu scriptures talk about the crown chakra as the "light of a million suns."  We are talking about Light.  The Light merged us, and then gave the indication that at a time, we would separate again.

When I read the Bhagavad Gita, I see that Arjuna merged into the Light of Krishna.  It was too strong for Arjuna, and so then Krishna stepped back out and both experienced the bliss of separate individuation, as well as the bliss of merger.

Psychologically, romantic relationships are like this: step into merger, step back out into individuation.  

"The rose and the thorn, and sorrow and gladness are linked together." – Saadi

This was a curious and perplexing moment.  How could I merge into someone I do not know?  There were lessons about learning how to proceed stepwise in ordinal time, and not confusing this process with the flood of openings in other spaces. We can be very connected energetically and yet barely know one another in ordinal communication.

I recently stepped into an acupuncturist’s office and had the experience of seeing her "fifth dimensional lover" behind her shoulder.  And a day later, of meeting someone whose father had died, and connecting instantly with him by seeing the heart cords between them.  In each case, I felt guided to speak my experience, and received confirmation from each of them, along with a very emotional opening each had to their own beloved lover, progenitor, as the case may be. 

Some people need to work on impulse control.  My lesson has been to trust the spontaneous impulses where speech comes from the primordial space.

At times the guidance is so specific. 

Recently I did a radio show in which I spoke on Ancient Wisdom and Modern Technology.  One of themes was that future medicine is moving into two opposing, yet paradoxically congruent directions: one, technology, and two, consciousness.

These are the new frontiers and while the "objectivity" of science is compelling, the subjectivity of mystical experience also opens us to new dimensions – whether labeled fifth or otherwise – in which we can roam and explore our sensitivity and openness to planetary connections among our species.

Let’s give Saadi the wrap here:

The children of Adam are part of a whole,
In creation being of one essence and soul.
If misfortune afflicts a member with pain,
Other members upset will remain.
If you feel free of fellow human’s pain,
The designation of Adam you cannot claim!

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HIPAA advanced course offers HIPAA training https://www.camlawblog.com/articles/health-trends/hipaa-advanced-course-offers-hipaa-training/ Sat, 09 Nov 2013 12:35:42 +0000 http://localhost/blog/2013/11/09/hipaa-advanced-course-offers-hipaa-training/ An advanced HIPAA training course is available for healthcare providers and facilities (covered entities) and their business associates who wish to satisfy their HIPAA compliance requirement of HIPAA training. It’s the HIPAA Privacy and Security Online Course by Medical Management Institute. Written by healthcare and FDA lawyer Michael H Cohen, the course covers HIPAA essentials:  HIPAA mandates HIPAA... Continue Reading

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An advanced HIPAA training course is available for healthcare providers and facilities (covered entities) and their business associates who wish to satisfy their HIPAA compliance requirement of HIPAA training.

It’s the HIPAA Privacy and Security Online Course by Medical Management Institute.

Written by healthcare and FDA lawyer Michael H Cohen, the course covers HIPAA essentials: 

HIPAA mandates HIPAA training for those required to comply. All members of the workforce (including employees, volunteers, trainees, and others under the control of the organization) must be trained on HIPAA privacy policies and procedures.

Although there are no formal federal or state standards for HIPAA training, having a strong HIPAA training program in place can help ensure compliance with the training requirement.

For more information, visit the HIPAA Privacy and Security Online Course.

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Hollywood’s Healer Aiden Chase Hosts Retreat https://www.camlawblog.com/articles/health-trends/hollywoods-healer-aiden-chase-hosts-retreat/ Wed, 17 Jul 2013 13:52:30 +0000 http://localhost/blog/2013/07/17/hollywoods-healer-aiden-chase-hosts-retreat/ The 7 Senses Retreat in the South of France is presented by Celebrity Intuitive, “Hollywood’s Healer” Aiden Chase. According to the press release, the event with my friend Aiden: in September 2013 will be hosted by Hallmark Channel’s Lexi Beermann at the enchanting private countryside chateau of celebrity interior designer Kathryn Ireland, star of BRAVO... Continue Reading

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The 7 Senses Retreat in the South of France is presented by Celebrity Intuitive, “Hollywood’s Healer” Aiden Chase.

According to the press release, the event with my friend Aiden:

in September 2013 will be hosted by Hallmark Channel’s Lexi Beermann at the enchanting private countryside chateau of celebrity interior designer Kathryn Ireland, star of BRAVO TV’s “Million Dollar Decorators”.

The 7 Senses Retreat invites people to lift their spirit in the south of France on a feast for the senses.

Aiden Chase invites anyone to join him along with host Lexi Beermann on a truly unforgettable French countryside hearth and indulge in the home experience of a lifetime. They celebrate living well, while individuals can adventure on a journey through the 7 senses. People can taste gourmet French cuisine lovingly prepared by their private chef using seasonal local produce straight from the farm and local artisanal ingredients. While smelling the glorious fragrance of French flowers in the gardens. They welcome people to touch the casually sophisticated fabrics and antiques in anyone of their rooms, which are personally decorated by Kathryn Ireland. People can see breathtaking picturesque villages and vineyards and hear beautiful silence and the charming sounds of nature. Here individuals are able to clear their stress while expanding their intuition and welcoming a joyful balance into their lives. The 7 Senses retreat invites those interested to relax, restore, and heal their minds, bodies, and spirits.

7 DAYS AND 6 NIGHTS INCLUDE

  • Delicious gourmet Breakfast, Lunch, Evening Tapas & Dinner with Local Wines
  • Transportation to and from Toulouse Airport
  • Daily Maid Service
  • Access to beautiful grounds, pool, gardens & all the chateau has to offer
  • Daily Healing Meditations & a Fireside Group Healing Event with Aiden
  • Daily Yoga available
  • Wonderful Music and Fun Evening Conversations

AVAILABLE ACTIVITIES

  • Relax by the Pool
  • In House Organic Wine Tasting
  • Cooking Demonstrations
  • Antique & Flea Market Shopping Trips
  • Excursions to charming Medieval Villages
  • Nature Walks & Bicycling through countryside & vineyards
  • Art afternoon with Lexi
  • Plenty of relaxed quiet & free time

ALL- INCLUSIVE PRICE
$ 5,975 double occupancy, $ 6,975 single occupancy (does not include air)

Private Healing Sessions & Intuitive Readings with Aiden available for additional fee.

For more information please visit the retreat website here, or to enroll, please visit Seek Retreat.

For Media Inquiries Please Contact: Kelley Coughlan | Melrose PR | Kelley(at)melrosepr(dot)com | (310) 260-7901

Contact

 

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“Mindwalk” Rocks, Sheds Light on Holistic Health https://www.camlawblog.com/articles/spirituality-in-healthcare/mindwalk-rocks-sheds-light-on-holistic-health/ Sun, 30 Jun 2013 14:26:37 +0000 http://localhost/blog/2013/06/30/mindwalk-rocks-sheds-light-on-holistic-health/ The film "Mindwalk" goes back to 1990, yet sheds light on light – and Light – and how systems theory and notions of holism promised to create a new world. I viewed "Mindwalk" at the Ojai Valley Retreat, among my favorite new sanctuaries. Liv Ullman plays the prophet of systems theory – a retired physicist,... Continue Reading

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The film "Mindwalk" goes back to 1990, yet sheds light on light – and Light – and how systems theory and notions of holism promised to create a new world.

I viewed "Mindwalk" at the Ojai Valley Retreat, among my favorite new sanctuaries.

Liv Ullman plays the prophet of systems theory – a retired physicist, estranged from her daughter, who holes herself up at Mont Saint Michel, where she contemplates the nature of subatomic particles and their vast spaciousness and rues that her discovery of the properties of small, intensely focused laser beams has been used by the defense department and not for medical purposes.

Liv’s character proclaims that we are all living systems – you, me, that tree – and we all interact on a subatomic level; in fact, we are swimming in a sea of cosmic energy, or more likely dancing, like Shiva Nataraj, the Hindu god of creation, who becomes a metaphor for the new physics that has replaced the Cartesian-Newtonian notion of God the Clockmaker.

There is a lot of fun wordplay this movie, like plays on the notion of time, as well as light; and there’s an underlying conversation as to whether we the human species have the wisdom to use our technology for healing instead of for destruction.  Essentially, the film draws together the physicist, a poet – speechwriter, and a Senator who failed his run for President because he was too far ahead of the people, or because he ran dry on inspiration.  All three are somewhat estranged from their essence, and their friendship and conversation draws each to face their idiosyncratic wounds and somehow return to life.

After the film I had opportunity to reflect how my own drawing on holism and systems theory in Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Legal Boundaries and Regulatory Perspectives (1998).  There, I began with Jan Smuts, who in his 1926 book Holism and Evolution – much earlier than Capra the filmmaker and Capra the physicist – described holism as the notion that every organism has self-direction, and that nature (including us) expresses itself in wholes.  Smuts contrasted holism with mechanism, and I picked up on the popular antithesis of biomedicine as reductionistic and mechanistic (following Cartesian dualism and Newtonian mechanism) and holistic health care as expanding the biopsychosocial model of care to include body, mind, emotions, and spirit.

"Curing involves the eradication of disease at the physiological level.  Healing involves a movement toward wholeness, growth, or greater balance on physical, mental, emotional, and social [and spiritual] level." (p. 9).

In the film, Ullman’s character asks, what good is curing without healing?  A discussion ensues about a doctor who removes the patient’s gallbladder – but maybe that operation would have been spared had the patient had proper diet and lifestyle counseling (and possibly, resolved any underlying emotional and energetic issues).

Of course, we go from thesis and antithesis to synthesis (see my later Healing at the Borderland of Medicine and Religion); and, the movie ends where the conversation really begins, which is with the question each character has about how to implement their Platonic dialogue into their lives. 

In medicine, we have integrative medicine – an ongoing dialectic.  In life, as Jung reminds us, we have individuation.

Like the conversation between the physicist and the politician in the film around whether you describe a tree by its roots and branches, or by its relationships with the animals its fruits feed, and its way of connecting sky and earth and breathing in and out for the planet, we have this same conversation in politics, environmental debates, in our nutritional and lifestyle habits, and in our moment by moment choices.

In Borderland I cited Suzuki’s comparison of a haiku by Basho, and a poem by Tennyson.  I wrote:

"Basho grasps the plant in its totality, achieving a rare and precious moment of enlightenment during which his consciousness merges in a state of united awareness with the beauty of the flower.  Tennyson, equally appreciative of the beauty of nature, approaches its immense and ungraspable marvel by uprooting the flower and examining it in wonder; he detaches the rose from its environment and separates himself from the object of his analysis."  (Borderland, p. 9).  

I noted that Suzuki describes these approaches as "East" and "West," and uses them as descriptions for two different ways of approaching the world.

However, the time has come for both to merge.

Kipling mysteriously wrote:

Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

A portion of the film takes places in the torture chamber.  Ullman’s character criticizes the ‘patriarchal culture, always trying to subdue the environment and impose the masculine and bend others to its will–the torture chamber being the ultimate result of wrought iron, of will wrought upon freedom.  It is the soft, nurturing, feminine principle, she argues, that can bring balance to this misshapen and distorted philosophical posture.

In Borderland, I argued for a synthesis of West and East, of the masculine and feminine principle, as we can be-

"simultaneously synthetic and analytical, nondiscriminative and discriminative, and intuitive and intellectual…. In other words, the millenial human who combines East and West would have both polarities active at once."

The politician goes back to Washington infused with the promise of systems theory and its potentiality to transform policy; the poet resolves to resolve his inner shadows and reintegrate with community; and the physicist, to transform her understanding of light into renewed intimacy with her family circle.

The final scene shows the politician and the poet walking back across the channel, absorbing their received wisdom in silence–the poet remembering fragments of meaningful verse–while the waters close and seal off the monastery into its storied castled remoteness.

"…The delusional matrix of medicolegal reality arguably shapes future future medicine in the wrong direction, errs when it perpetuates a delusional sense that a human being is only material, and … needs to expand to wisely assimilate portions of foreign (and sometimes competing) worldviews.  It is, perhaps, not only medicine that is being integrated, but also these two facets of human nature–two different ways of knowing….

Acknowledging such an approach can bring the covert into the overt, and can validate subjectivity, intuition and mystery in equipoise to science and law, so that the field of knowing may be broadened and enriched."  (Borderland, Epilogue).

Or, to give Rumi the last word:

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about
language, ideas, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Past Wife, Past Life https://www.camlawblog.com/articles/health-trends/past-wife-past-life/ Sat, 29 Jun 2013 14:17:26 +0000 http://localhost/blog/2013/06/29/past-wife-past-life/ These lines of poetry came to me while contemplating the completion of a relationship. Past wife, past life This time though I felt the knife. How I wish you’d been on board Now it’s best to cut the cord. You probably will not see my Iowa Writers’ Workshop poetry training in this one … I... Continue Reading

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These lines of poetry came to me while contemplating the completion of a relationship.

Past wife, past life

This time though I felt the knife.

How I wish you’d been on board

Now it’s best to cut the cord.

You probably will not see my Iowa Writers’ Workshop poetry training in this one … I think the influence is more "Star Light, Star Bright."

Sometimes the guidance comes in silly wisdom with a dose of humor.

I’m also much impressed with the new book of poetry by my friend Peter Faust from Healing Arts of Belmont.  Check out his videos on the Constellation work that he does.

PS: The "past wife" here refers to someone who was a wife in a PAST life – hence the reference to "past life."  Not any person in a current life.  Sometimes we meet people on the soul path and recognize them from other times and places.  Many lives, many masters …. that sort of thing.

I do regard these relationships as sacred, with sacred teachings. That does not mean that one transcends all human feeling.  Such is the way of the cosmos.

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What is the future of Complementary and Alternative Medicine under the Affordable Care Act? https://www.camlawblog.com/articles/health-trends/what-is-the-future-of-complementary-and-alternative-medicine-under-the-affordable-care-act/ Fri, 14 Jun 2013 12:25:33 +0000 http://localhost/blog/2013/06/14/what-is-the-future-of-complementary-and-alternative-medicine-under-the-affordable-care-act/ The Complementary and Alternative Medicine Law Blog  is pleased to published the following guest article on integrative medicine and healthcare reform:   ** What is the future of Complementary and Alternative Medicine under the Affordable Care Act? Complementary and Alternative Medicine is a growing segment of the U.S. healthcare system. According to a 2011 survey... Continue Reading

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The Complementary and Alternative Medicine Law Blog  is pleased to published the following guest article on integrative medicine and healthcare reform:

 

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What is the future of Complementary and Alternative Medicine under the Affordable Care Act?

Complementary and Alternative Medicine is a growing segment of the U.S. healthcare system. According to a 2011 survey from Consumer Reports, every year 38 million Americans receive more than 300 million CAM treatments. Since most insurance plans have limited coverage for CAM, patients are usually paying for them out-of-pocket.

On average insurance coverage for CAM treatment depends on several factors like state mandates, your health insurance company, and the local licensure or certification of CAM practitioners. Most plans at the moment limit coverage to specific conditions as well as the number of visits you can make to a practitioner each year.

Historically, health insurers have preferred to cover only low-risk, proven medical practices. Before even considering coverage for a CAM treatment most insurers will require proof of its effectiveness and safety from peer reviewed medical literature.

Sadly though, that research can be hard to come by. It’s no secret that research in many areas of CAM lags far behind so-called "evidence-based" medicine. Still, an increasing number of people choose to seek out CAM practitioners for treatment each year.

Now with the upcoming full implementation of the Affordable Care Act on Jan. 1, 2014, we will finally see some changes in the way CAM treatments are covered by insurance.

Inside the Obama administration’s landmark law is Section 2706, the Non-Discrimination in Health Care clause which states: “A group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage shall not discriminate with respect to participation under the plan or coverage against any health care provider who is acting within the scope of that provider’s license or certification under applicable State law.”

The wording may be a little confusing but what this means essentially is that if a CAM practitioner is licensed within a state to perform certain procedures then insurance companies must give them the same consideration as they would a medical doctor.

So because of this clause, insurers could cover your visits to licensed CAM practitioners like acupuncturists, chiropractors, massage therapists, and naturopathic doctors. Now the question is, how will this change complementary and alternative medicine in the future?

There are a couple of different views regarding the future of CAM and the Care Act. Some believe that this will help promote integration among different practitioners that will improve the delivery of quality care to consumers. Others think it will lead to a more philosophical shift in health care moving the U.S. from focusing on just medical interventions to more health promotion and maintenance.

Allowing CAM practitioners to participate in the direct care of patients sits right in line with what the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine envisions: “a comprehensive and compassionate health care system offering seamless integration of effective complementary and conventional approaches to promote healing and health in every individual and community.”

However, changes might not be as significant as some people expect. Before a CAM procedure can be approved for coverage, it must be proven safe, effective, as well as cost-effective.

The situation might be a little harder if you are enrolled in Medicaid. Only medically necessary care that falls into the ten “essential health benefits” categories of the Care Act will be included for coverage under the government-sponsored program.

Still, the Non-Discrimination clause will be helpful to those who wish to seek options outside of conventional medicine. Some people would like to deal with pain through natural means and want to avoid unnecessary surgeries. Removing payment barriers can help doctors and other medical practitioners refer their patients to CAM practitioners without worrying too much about limited insurance coverage.

Admittedly the Affordable Care Act has a lot of work ahead of it with more than 45 million Americans currently without any form of health insurance. For public officials getting ready for the implementation of the health care law, wider access to CAM treatments is probably not a priority. But giving patients coverage for even limited access to nontraditional medicine is certainly a step toward the right direction toward solving America’s worsening health problems.

Michael Cahill is Editor of the Vista Health Solutions blog. He has a degree in Journalism from SUNY New Paltz and previously worked as a reporter for the Poughkeepsie Journal and an editor for the Rockland County Times. Follow him on Twitter at @VistaHealth and @ElectronicMike

 

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The Michael H. Cohen Law Group in Los Angeles, California provides healthcare regulatory, corporate, and litigation legal counsel.  We do not offer healthcare insurance services, and express no opinion regarding the foregoing guest editorial.

 

For more information, contact the Michael H. Cohen Law Group.

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