ACA Pediatrics Council's quarterly newsletters.

Significant developments in the field of Chiropractic Pediatrics:

January 2009: A press release by the ACA reported that "An increasing number of children are receiving chiropractic care as part of an integrative approach to health and wellness." The press release resulted in media coverage by a number of online news sources, incuding yahoo! news, Medical News Today, PRN Newswire, Topix, earthtimes.org, and reuters.com.

January 2009: The ACA is continuing to fight for coverage of pediatric patients. The Tufts Health Plan has denied coverage for spinal manipulation for children. After multiple communications between the ACA and Tufts, the ACA has taken the matter to the Massachusetts Attorney General. Read more details at the ACA's website here.

January 2009: USA Today published a story on pediatric chiropractic featuring our council president, Dr. Elise Hewitt.

December 2008: The CDC released a report examining complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) usage among children in the U.S.  The report found that chiropractic/osteopathic manipulation was the most common doctor-directed pediatric CAM therapy, second overall only to the usage of nutritional supplements.

December 2008: The journal "Pediatrics" published a clinical report titled "The Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Pediatrics" by Kemper and Vohra. The report states: "Recent studies have confirmed that up to 14% of all chiropractic visits were for pediatric patients and that chiropractors were the most common CAM providers visited by children and adolescents."

June 2008: The ACA Pediatrics Council and the ICA Pediatrics Council issued a joint press release last week explaining our mutual recognition of the DICCP certification for specialty certification in chiropractic pediatrics. To view this statement, click below:

April 2008: The ACA's Pediatrics Council's efforts to have pediatrics recognized as a subscpecialty of general chiropractic is successful as a new taxonomy code for pediatric chiropractors takes effect. The definition of the new code:

The Pediatric Chiropractor is a chiropractor with specialized, advanced training and certification in the evaluation, care and management of health and wellness conditions of infancy, childhood and adolescence. This specialist provides primary, comprehensive, therapeutic and preventative chiropractic health care for newborns through adolescents.

March 2008: The ACA unanimously voted to approve our council's recommendations to update their policy on chiropractic care of pediatric patients, which had not been updated since 1993. The new policy can be read at the ACA's policy page here (scroll down to "Pediatric Chiropractic Care" under the fast find menu).

February 2008: United Healthcare rescinds policy that would have denied chiropractic care for pediatric patients.

Oct 2007: The ACA Pediatrics Council, along with other leading chiropractic organizations, responds to United Healthcare's proposal with an official statement, as well as a letter to UHC.

Sept 2007: United Healthcare announces that they have decided to deny chiropractic coverage to pediatric patient. They stated that "a recent review of the clinical evidence in published, peer-reviewed medical literature leads us to further conclude that chiropractic services for treatment of children and adolescents is unproven..."

April 2007: The ACA's House of Delegates voted to approve the recognition of the International College of Chiropractic Pediatrics (ICCP) as the governing body that grants post-doctoral certification in the specialty of chiropractic pediatrics. This is in response to a by-laws amendment passed by our council. This is the first time in history that the same organization has been recognized by both the ICA and the ACA for post-graduate certification of diplomates.