Update United States 08-01-22
I had a great week last week, meeting with our board, and talking about the direction of where The Chiropractic Defense Council is going in the near future. Today, I want to share with you a glimpse of that, and then also update you on some of the things that we’re concerned about moving forward. So good morning, American chiropractors, my name is Bharon Hoag. I am the Executive Director of The Chiropractic Defense Council coming to you today, Monday, August 1st, 2022 for your weekly update.
So as always, you can tell when my backgrounds are different, that I’m traveling. So I’m actually in Albuquerque, New Mexico right now at a UAC event. We had a board meeting leading up to this event and it was a phenomenal time of just sitting and digging deep into the work we’ve been doing, where we feel we’re sitting, and where we believe we should be going as The Defense Council.
I’m so blessed with the board that I have, the diversity, the individuals, their success, and their mindset. It was just fantastic. So a great time of fellowship, a great time, of discussion moving forward. One of the things that came up in the conversation that I want to share with you today is being very clear about the direction of The Defense Council. I know here in the United States, there are a million organizations and all of them are claiming to do similar things. We are here for one purpose and that is to protect the rights of practicing chiropractors. We are here to defend you when you are wrongfully attacked, whether it’s your college, whether it’s an insurance company, whether it’s another chiropractor, whether it’s your state government, whether whatever the case may be when chiropractors are being accused or attacked or restricted or not having access to the things that they need to have, that is the work that we do.
We work in conjunction with your state association when appropriate with national associations.
We’re not looking to be cavalier or take anyone’s place. We’re working to do the work that sometimes is difficult for those organizations to do. I’m a huge association guy. I ran one for six years, very adamant about making sure that associations have the support that they need. And that’s exactly why we’ve structured this the way that we have. The reason I’m sharing this with you is I need people to understand that being that defense arm, that Navy sealed team, there is a peacetime conversation.
There’s a wartime conversation and when we first met most of you it was during the wartime conversation of you being told you had to be vaccinated to continue to practice. And we stepped up to that challenge and we were successful across the country and ensuring that that was not the case for chiropractors, but the peacetime conversation is looking at the trends and the things that are going on. And I’ve been sharing that over the past week. So looking at how our profession is structured, how do we shore up the weaknesses that allowed this type of action to happen over the last two years? And how do we fix those things? How do we get, and have adult conversations about where the profession of chiropractic is at and how we fix that infrastructure, as I’ve said before, there’s amazing work being done through the strategic plan and those individuals, but the work we’re doing is different than that.
This is about really being honest about the weaknesses and the breakdowns and then making sure that we figure out how to work together to defend this amazing profession that we have the privilege of representing. So this that’s the work that’s being done right now. We’re looking, yes, there are things that pop up like what happened in Massachusetts with that legislation or in Illinois, and you know, those types of things, we’re going to always raise and use our resources to impact those. But we have to have a bigger conversation in the profession of chiropractic. It is still unacceptable that more than 80% of our profession is not tied to an organization on a national level. And that’s, that’s, that’s where the weakness comes from. That’s why it’s very difficult for organizations to get things done.
We’ve lost that trust. How do we gain that back? How do we have those conversations? So in the coming weeks, I’m going to be meeting with the chiropractic summit. I’m going to be meeting at the Chiro Congress event, near the end of the year. It gives me an opportunity to sit down with the leaders of these different organizations and have these conversations because that’s what matters most to the future of our profession. And so we’re doing that, not on a cavalier, we know something they don’t, but just having the unique perspective we had during this pandemic, we need to start having these conversations. You are so vital to that. If we can get more chiropractors to be on the same page, by watching these videos and being tied to The Defense Council, it’s $33 a month. It’s a very, very nominal amount.
What you get for that $33 is the protection. If anyone ever comes after you and you haven’t done anything wrong, we want to be that force, where your malpractice isn’t going to step in your state association, can’t step in. We don’t want you to be fearful. We have so many people across the country where licensing boards have come after them. And just because of fear of losing their license or fear of running out of money to fight the licensing board, they just give in. And so what that does is it sets precedent and that has to stop. We need to make sure that the profession of chiropractic is strong, and is coming together using resources appropriately to deliver a product that the world deserves. So that’s the work that we’re doing.
To give you an example of that is what we’re doing with The World Health Organization, and the concerns we have with what they’re doing with their healthcare crisis group and the language that they’re using on how they want to go into countries when they believe there’s a pandemic or an epidemic and be able to step in and, and do things, which our concern is the sovereignty there. That they’re going to just trump, maybe what would, if you look at what happened during the COVID pandemic, you saw Texas, you saw Florida take a stand, you saw South Dakota, take a stand or North Dakota, rather, those are the places. But if The World Health Organization comes in and they somehow have authority that can penetrate that sovereignty, that’s a problem and a concern for us. So those are the things we’re looking at. That is the work we’re doing. We’re protecting the rights of the practicing chiropractor and we’re staying in our lane so that we have the ability to work with others.
This is a long-winded way of just letting you know, that the work that we’re doing matters. I’m very proud of what we’ve done, not only in the United States but in other countries. And we need to keep having these conversations and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. And you’re so vital to that process that we want you to stay plugged in, stay connected with us so that together we can make chiropractic the number one healthcare choice in the world. And that is our goal. So you have an amazing week this week.
There’s more information coming from our planning meeting. We’re going to change up some of our marketing, and some of our messaging. And I’m excited to give you that new look as we enter our second year of existence as The Defense Council. So it’s been a crazy wild year. We just love you. We appreciate you. We thank you for your support. Please spread the word. We need your help. We love you. We appreciate you. God, bless your week. (This is a computer-generated transcript. Please forgive any errors.)
