Dear Editor:
I wanted to express my opinion of the CMS documentation training tool, "Improving the Documentation of Chiropractic Services." [A link to the YouTube video appears in our article on the topic, "New Medicare Documentation Training Tool" (Feb. 15 issue).] It was a total waste of time to view. The script must have been written by 6th graders. It was denigrating without overtly doing so.
As a taxpayer, I am appalled that my dollars contributed to this. Just another slap in the face for DCs.
R. Dean Harman, DC
San Mateo, Calif.
I Know Where to Find the Missing Chiropractic Patients
Dear Editor:
These patients are not missing, they are seeing other providers with broader scopes who have the "cultural authority" in the health care world to discuss with parents the medication status of their children. [See the Publisher's Report of Findings, "Millions of Missing Chiropractic Patients," in the April 1 issue.]
Without education and expanded licensure to ensure proper training to all chiropractors, as a profession we are way out of our league and even violating the terms under which we practice if we involve ourselves in substituting natural, safer methods rather than the list of meds that young patients come in on if they are suffering from ailments on the list in your editorial. Believe me that a parent whose child is suffering migraines or back pain is fearing a brain tumor or bone cancer, not a vertebral subluxation. Most aware parents, if they have heard us fighting among ourselves and even accusing one another of being improperly trained or worse – that we do not even wish to maintain our professional scope at its current level – will say "no thanks" and move along to their local pediatrician.
Cathlynn Groh, DC-APC
Santa Fe, N.M.
Clarification on Vitamin D Study
Dear Editor:
The authors of the study I discussed in my April 15 article ["Vitamin D Fails to Help Knee OA? The Proper Perspective"] delivered just 50,000 IU of vitamin D per month, rather than the more customary 50,000 IU per week dosing. This means the subjects received only 1,667 IU per day, rather than 7,000 as I mistakenly wrote in the article.
Such a small dose makes the study and conclusion even less relevant, and should be taken with a grain of salt.
David Seaman, DC, MS, DABCN
Longtime Author of our "Nutrition Essentials" Column