In a late October 2008 tele-conference with state and insurance investigators an executive from a southern state chiropractic association with twenty years of chiropractic experience reported that most of the fraud committed by chiropractors is perpetrated by chiropractors employed in clinics owned and operated by non-chiropractors.


This executive went on to report that lay-owned clinics account for 80–90% of the chiropractic fraud problem, and that these non-chiropractors prey on chiropractors just out of school saddled with large student loan debt who will do whatever they are told.


Has this executive found the answer to successfully combating chiropractic fraud – prohibiting lay ownership of chiropractic practices?


Well, the answer is a resounding NO!


•The chiropractic regulatory board in this southern state indicates that there is no evidence to support the executive’s assertion that lay-owned chiropractic clinics account for most of the fraud committed by chiropractors.


•Numerous states do not allow for non-chiropractors to own chiropractic clinics and these states have found that they are not immune from chiropractic fraud.


•Chiropractors saddled with large student loan debt inclined to engage in unlawful activity to pay their bills are just not only employed in lay-owned clinics but are employed in clinics owned and operated by other chiropractors, as well as running their own practice.


In this southern state it is clear that the chiropractic association has an agenda to rid the state of competition posed by successful lay-owned chiropractic clinics, and appears their representatives will say anything to champion their cause.


I suspect that health care consumers in this southern state are far less concerned about who owns the chiropractic clinics then they are about quality of care issues brought on by chiropractors not being required to be on premises to supervise non-licensed staff administering health care services, and chiropractors delegating the administration of provider services to non-providers.