And here's why chiros are so often maligned by the insurance industry and medicine in general; they seem to lump patients all together and treat "the whole spine" whether or not the whole spine is having the problem.

When you bill the same codes for all the patients in a practice it looks as though there is no medical decision-making going on- we all know that just the "appearance" of impropriety makes one look suspicious.

Those chiros that do this kind of billing are just hurting their entire area; the U&C rates are affected by this practice of giving everyone the same treatment. Underbilling undermines the U&C for everyone in an area, but makes the billing easier for the doc. We've been to several seminars that beg docs to make sure they're not underbilling OR overbilling. (including our state chiro society)

It is a known fact that it is a red-flag to medicare when a chiro sends in the same manip code for every patient they treat, consistently. Medicare is the organization that all the other insurance companies look to for precedent. You decide.