newjerseynewsroom.com

The Association of New Jersey Chiropractors (ANJC), which represents over 1,600 chiropractors statewide, is pleased with the vote in the New Jersey State Senate and General Assembly that ushers in a new scope of practice for chiropractic care in the state for the first time since 1953.

ANJC has been working closely in a bipartisan manner with state legislators over the past five years to enact passage of this long overdue scope of practice change, which enhances the way chiropractors treat and manage patients. There are over 3000 chiropractors actively practicing in New Jersey who will benefit.

"This new scope of practice is not only historic for the chiropractic profession in New Jersey but, most importantly, serves as a victory for the one million patients we treat statewide each year who benefit from chiropractic care," said Dr. Steven Clarke, President of the ANJC.

Several new components legislated by this new scope of practice:

• Requires chiropractors to maintain medical malpractice liability insurance.
• Requires chiropractors to complete 30 credits for continuing education every two years, with two credits focusing on ethics and record keeping, and two credits in nutrition education.
• Permits chiropractors to provide dietary/nutritional counseling and the ability to dispense nutritional supplements. Although taught in chiropractic colleges, New Jersey has been the only state not to allow this as part of their practice.
• Places into statue that chiropractors can adjust extremities independent of spinal subluxations. This is pursuant to a 2008 New Jersey Supreme Court ruling stating that it is within the chiropractic scope of practice to adjust extremities beyond the spinal column per regulations enacted by the New Jersey State Board of Chiropractors as well as numerous Board pronouncements over the past two decades.

"We've been operating under the most archaic scope of practice in the country. Since New Jersey last amended the chiropractic scope of practice in 1953, most of what chiropractors have been currently allowed to do is provided in regulation and in case law, but hadn't been placed into statute. This legislation now puts those regulations and case laws into statute,'' added Clarke.

— ANDY LAGOMARSINO, NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM