| Alternative Medicine Practices

| Alternative Medicine Practices The Board is aware that a growing number of licensees and patients are both implementing and seeking complementary and alternative medicine in their health care. Further, the Board recognizes that innovative practices that could benefit patients and improve care should be given reasonable and responsible degrees of latitude. In reviewing this subject, the Board is also aware of the fact that consumer fraud occurs across the country, and, unfortunately, not infrequently in the practice of medicine. If consumer protection means anything, it should protect people weakened by illness from the dangers attendant to unsound, invalidated, and/or otherwise unsubstantiated practices. Licensees should never agree to perform invalidated or unsound treatments or therapies. The Board feels that licensees may incorporate alternative therapies if research results are promising, and only if the methods utilized are reasonably likely to benefit patients without undue risk. A full and frank discussion of the risks and benefits of all medical practices is expected, and is in the patient’s best interest. Licensees should practice pursuant to informed and shared decision making when determining the utilization of complementary therapies. This style of process is conducive to openly weighing the risks and benefits of the therapies under consideration. While this process is ideal, the licensee is ultimately responsible for the decision-making process. Where evidence is unavailable for a particular treatment in the form of clinical trials or case studies, licensees must only proceed with an appropriate rationale for the proposed treatment, and justification of its use, in relation to the patient’s symptoms or condition. Novel, experimental, and unproven interventions should only be proposed when traditional or accepted proven treatment modalities have been exhausted. In such instances, there must still be a basis in theory or peer- 4 Regulations regarding Licensed Acupuncture can be found at Title 30, Part 2625 The Practice of Acupuncture acknowledged practice. The burden rests solely on the licensee in regard to the substantiation supporting the use of a particular therapy. Licensees should be prepared to support any claims made about benefits of treatments or devices with documented evidence, for example with studies published in peer-reviewed publications. Licensees must refrain from charging excessive fees for treatments provided. Further, licensees should not recommend, provide, or charge for unnecessary medical services, nor should they make intentional misrepresentations to increase the level of payment they receive.5