A Wellness Forum Foundation Initiative
Why do practitioners need protection?
Healthcare practices are regulated by state licensure boards, which are authorized and overseen by the state legislature. The board members are usually appointed by the governor. Typically states license medical and osteopathic doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, psychologists, chiropractors, dentists, dental hygienists, pharmacists and optometrists. Most state license dietitians, and some license massage therapists, naturopaths and a few other modalities.
Dozens of other types of health professionals are not licensed. These can include foot reflexologists, reiki practitioners, herbalists, non-dietitian nutritionists, energy therapists, homeopaths, Ayurvedic practitioners, and many others.
Many people think that licensure is a means of protecting the public. To an extent this is true. State boards can discipline practitioners or delicense them if they harm a patient and prevent people who are not doctors from performing surgery.
But licensure boards ALSO protect practice groups. For example, some dietetics boards target non-dietitian nutritionists to protect dietitians from competition. At one time the Ohio Dietetics Board had investigated more people than almost all other states combined for unlicensed practice of nutrition.
Influence from industry drive some regulatory action. The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB is a non-profit organization located in Texas. The Federation claims to represent the state medical boards in the U.S. and support them “…as they fulfill their mandate of protecting the public’s health, safety, and welfare through the proper licensing, disciplining and regulation of physicians, and in most jurisdictions, other health professionals.” The Federation also claims to “Serve medical boards by promoting best practices and providing policies, advocacy, and other resources that add to their effectiveness.”
This all sounds good, but it’s not entirely accurate. For example, FSMB played a major role in the disastrous opiate debacle. Led by Purdue Pharma, maker of Oxycontin, opiate manufacturers gave almost $2 million to the Federation. Purdue alone contributed $672,400. The Federation wrote new guidelines for opiate prescribing, claiming that what looked like addiction was not really addiction at all. The guidelines included statements such as this: “Physicians should recognize that tolerance and physical dependence are normal consequences of sustained use of opioid analgesics and are not synonymous with addiction.” The Federation then pressured medical boards to adopt the new guidelines, and to reassure doctors that following the new guidelines would reduce the likelihood of disciplinary action.
The Federation also promoted a book, Responsible Opioid Prescribing, which was authored by pharma-friendly doctors who advocated for broader availability of opiate drugs. The book was marketed to state medical boards, health departments, physicians, clinics, and hospitals. While the book was financed by drug companies, FSMB earned about $270,000 in profits from selling it.
The Federation claimed in response to a Senate investigation that its intention was not to promote opioids but rather to provide advice about how to do so responsibly. But the organization’s guidelines could not have been more straight forward: opioids were safe and failure to prescribe them would indicate ignorance and potentially cause harm to patients. The guidelines included this statement: “Millions of Americans suffer from debilitating pain – a condition that, for some, can be relieved through the use of opioids. Studies have concluded that both acute pain and chronic pain are often under-treated in the United States, creating serious repercussions that include the loss of productivity and quality of life.”1
As shown above, the Federation exerts a lot of influence over the policies and operations of the state medical boards. This is one of the reasons why so many doctors were disciplined or delicensed for speaking out about COVID policies and vaccines, prescribing drugs off-label, or writing vaccine exemption letters. Foundation lawyers represented several physicians who were targeted by medical boards based on FSMB’s instructions regarding COVID treatments and vaccines.
Things are no better for unlicensed practitioners, who are safe from investigation and prosecution in only two states: Minnesota and Rhode Island. In all other states, they risk investigation and prosecution for unlicensed practice. In some states certain types of unlicensed practice are prosecuted as a felony.
It is time to stop the unrelenting attack on
both licensed and unlicensed health professionals!
The Wellness Forum Foundation Healthcare Legal Defense Fund
One of the reasons why licensure boards continue to behave the way they do is the expense of fighting back. Few health professionals have the resources to defend themselves, file lawsuits, or organize on their own. Typical medical malpractice insurance provides limited or no coverage for the defense of licensure proceedings. Many insurers reserve the right to choose the defense attorney, and few lawyers have experience in this area of practice. The deck is stacked against the practitioner, with the Board acting as investigator, judge and jury. Losers are often required to reimburse the state for the privilege of being persecuted and prosecuted.
There is strength in numbers!!
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that there are over 22 million licensed healthcare workers in the U.S.2 Many complementary and alternative practitioners are not licensed, so it is not possible to know how many there are in the U.S. But The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health reported in 2016 that Americans spent over $32 billion on alternative healthcare modalities annually.3 Based on these numbers it is likely that there are at least one million alternative providers in the U.S.
If just 5% of these practitioners remit dues of just $100 annually: we will have a “war chest” of $115 million dollars per year to help defend practitioners against assault on their livelihoods. Here is how the fund is handled:
While the Fund is not a form of insurance, and we must reserve the right to select the cases in which to invest for maximum policy effect in its sole and absolute discretion. We will defend licensed and unlicensed practitioners who have done nothing wrong or where the punishment does not fit the so-called crime against overregulation and attacks from state licensure boards, federal agencies, and other regulatory bodies.
Sue hospitals, medical institutions and academic centers that discipline or fire healthcare workers or faculty for voicing their opinions about preventive healthcare and treatment.
Work to eliminate the influence of outside organizations like the Federation of State Medical Boards and certification boards that bypass state legislatures with “guidance” for regulating practice.
We’ve already been successful!
Our lawyers have prevented licensure revocation for many doctors and restored the licenses of several, often without the usual practice restrictions the state likes to impose. MAFA’s executive staff has a long history of successfully fighting restrictions on the practices of unlicensed professionals in several states and winning some of those battles as well.
It’s time to free both licensed and unlicensed Healthcare practitioners from the tyranny that prohibits them from practicing responsibly!
Contribute to MAFA’s Healthcare Legal Defense Fund today!
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The Wellness Forum Foundation
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