Don't Pay of Contract in Advance for Chiropractic Visits at a "Discount" Price

Don't Pay or Contract in Advance for
Chiropractic Visits at a "Discount" Price

Stephen Barrett, M.D.

Many chiropractors offer contracts under which patients pay in advance or or agree to pay for many visits at a "discount" price. I have seen contracts for as many as 100 visits. Chiropractors who offer them typically tell all patients that long-term care is needed to prevent recurrence or spinal degeneration. Some chiropractors display a chart of "subluxation degeneration" that they say is inevitable without intensive and/or long-term care. All such advice represents overselling. Even if chiropractic treatment can legitimately help a problem, it is not possible to know in advance that a large specified number of visits will be needed.

In addition to excessive visits, contracts often contain provisions intended to discourage quitting. Some say that if treatment is stopped before all of the visits are used, the discount will be cancelled and visits used will be figured at their "full" price. Some contracts also call for an "administrative fee" for early stoppage.

Payment Arrangements

Three types of payment arrangements are common:

Installment payments to the chiropractor
Advance patient to the chiropractor
Use of a "health care credit card" in which the chiropractor gets paid by a loan company and the patient is obliged to repay the loan company

Installment payments pose the least risk because patients who stop "early" are unlikely to be forced to pay for more services than they have received. The amount of money is usually too small to make a lawsuit practical, and failure to pay medical bills will not affect a person's credit rating. Full advance payment is more risky because if the chiropractor refuses to make an appropriate refund for unused services, it may be difficult to obtain one. Third-party financing through a credit agency very dangerous because no matter what happens between the patient and the chiropractor, the patient remains legally bound to repay the loan and failure to repay can seriously damage a person's credit rating.

Many chiropractors encourage patients to finance the contracted amount through CareCredit, a company that pays the chiropractor (minus a small fee) upfront and then collects from the patients. The process is typically described as an interest-free loan or interest-free credit plan. However, if payments are late, the interest and other fees can be very high. Some patients are led to believe that the chiropractor was simply extending credit with a payment plan. However, the CareCredit plan is a "non-recourse" loan from what the law would regard as an independent loan company [1].

Legal and Regulatory Actions

In August 2008, in response to complaints from patients, the Maryland Board of Chiropractic and Massage Therapy Examiners advised chiropractors not to use "extended treatment contracts":

A licensee is free to use whatever patient contract he/she desires provided that the contract is clear, fair, and may be terminated at any time for any reason, without penalty by the patient. If a contract unduly restricts a patient to commit for extended periods of treatment requiring penalties for termination, the contract is unconscionable and considered as unprofessional conduct by the Board. Licensees must carefully assess binding a patient to an extended care contract since parameters of care, patient health and patient desires change as time goes by. For example, a patient may simply not like the personality or treatment methods of the licensee. In such cases, the patient must have the free, unfettered and unobstructed right to terminate the patient care contract for any reason and at any time without penalty. The Board has received numerous complaints from patients regarding the unfair use of such contracts. For these reasons, the Board strongly advises licensees to refrain from the use of long-term, extended treatment contracts.

In 2007, the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts charged Bradley Eck, D.C., of Wichita, Kansas, with unprofessional conduct. The complaint stated that he engaged in deceptive advertising and used improper contracts under which patients paid "discount" prices in advance for multiple visits but would receive no refund for visits that were not used [2]. In February 2009, the case was settled with a consent order under which Eck must pay investigative costs plus a $5,000 fine; serve probation for two years; and provide full refunds to patients listed in the complaint who did not receive all of the treatments for which they contracted [2].

That same month, a small claims court judge voided the contracts between chiropractor Donald Harte and two former patient, Gertrude C. West, who sued Harte in Marin County, California. West, a retired attorney, had sought help for knee pain but was advised to have intensive care for “subluxation degeneration” of her spine. She contracted for 100 visits with a discount for advance payment but severe penalties for discontinuing. After 49 visits over a 4-month period, she concluded that she was not being helped and asked that payment for the unused visits be refunded. When Harte refused, she filed suit. The judge concluded that (a) West had been misled, (b) the penalty clause was "unconscionable," and (c) West was entitled to a $6,401 refund, plus the cost of the suit [4]. The other former patient, Victoria Pollock-Grasso of Tiburon, objected to Harte charging a $559 "administrative fee" when she decided to stop seeing him. Grasso said she stopped because an orthopedist she consulted for a second opinion said she had degenerative disc disease in her cervical spine and that Harte's manipulation of her neck could cause her to have a stroke [4]. Harte appealed the West ruling, asserting that the contract was enforceable and that he was entitled to reasonable compensation for services rendered. The small claims appeal judge reduced the award to $4,589.00 plus costs of $75.00. The judge did not explain how he decided what was "reasonable," but he clearly agreed that the contract was not.

Documents from the case show how Harte used scare tactics. His "report of findings" is a pre-printed form with fill-in sections such as:

"Dysautonomia: mild | moderate | severe | very severe." In this area Harte checked "severe" and penned in the words "May get worse."
"Diseases you have, apparent or not , diseases that are in the process of developing, and every aspect of your . . . body function that is operating at less than optimal level. Unknown diseases?
"Pathological changes in the spine itself, from years of VSC: Subluxation Degeneration."

The bottom of the form contains "recommendations for initial intensive care," with blanks to fill in the number of visits per week, and a statement that the speed and degree of eventual recovery are influenced by consistency in following the recommendations. The contract called for 92 regular visits at $97 each ($55 Medicare discount price) and 8 "progressive examination visits" @ $250 each—said to be a total value of $7,080 for a discount price of $6,354 if paid in advance. It goes on to say, however, that if care is stopped before completion, services will be charged at regular prices and a 10% "administrative fee" would be added.

In 2009, the Minnesota Attorney General and Minnesota Board of Chiropractic Examiners filed a lawsuit accusing Express Health of Lakeville, Minnesota and its owner Cory Couillard, D.C. of engaging in predatory lending practices. The suit alleges:

Couillard and his clinic aggressively enrolled patients in the CareCredit Credit Card offered by GE Money Bank, convincing some patients to complete applications by telling them that they were not applying for a credit card but that the clinic simply wanted to check to see if they would qualify for credit.
Unbeknownst to these patients, Express Health and Couillard then submitted the application to the Bank, which issued a CareCredit credit card in the patient's name. In order to ensure that patients qualified for a credit card, the defendants sometimes submitted to the lender false annual income for patients, in some cases doubling or more patients' actual income.
Once patients were issued a credit card, the defendants placed lump-sum charges of up to $5,040 on the credit card, without patients' knowledge or consent.
In the two-year, five-month period between December, 2006 and April, 2009, the clinic charged $560,850 to CareCredit credit cards issued to its patients. About half that amount was later refunded by the clinic to patients who complained. [Swanson, board sue chiropractic clinic for predatory lending involving health care credit cards, Press release, Minnesota Attorney General, Aug 12, 2009] http://www.chirobase.org/08Legal/express.html

The Attorney General's office, which is investigating complaints about other providers, has published a Consumer Alert cautioning patients to be wary of high-pressure sales pitches health care credit cards [6].

My Advice to Consumers

The best way to avoid being tricked is to stay away from tricksters. In line with this, I have published a list of warning signs that are associated with overselling [6]. The most important are "free examinations" and recommendations to treat "subluxations." If you have signed a chiropractic contract of the type described above and later conclude that keep the following mind:

Contracts covering multiple visits over a period of months are probably not enforceable. Penalty causes are probably unenforceable, and most chiropractic licensing boards would view them as unethical. However, if a health care credit card is use to make payment, the patient is obligated to repay the loan company.
If you have had as much help as you need, don't let a contract intimidate you. Ask for cancellation of the contract and a full refund of unused services with no penalty.
If you conclude that the whole treatment plan was unnecessary, demand a refund of all payment.
Don't worry excessively about a threat to turn you over to a collection agency. Failure to pay chiropractic bills will not affect your credit rating. If an agency becomes involved, simply tell them to stop contacting you.
Be prepared to complain to the state chiropractic board and the Better Business Bureau. Before doing so, give the chiropractor a final chance to resolve the situation amicably.
If you plan to complain, get a copy of your records so they cannot be altered later.
A suit in small claims court might be successful.
I you need additional advice, please send me an e-mail describing what happened and include your phone number.

References

Frequently asked questions. CareCredit Web site, accessed Nov 13, 2009.
First amended complaint. In the matter of Bradley Eck, D.C., Kansas State Board of the Healing Arts, KSBHA Docket No. 0 -HA00095, filed Aug 24, 2007.
Consent order. In the matter of Bradley Eck, D.C., Kansas State Board of the Healing Arts, KSBHA Docket No. 0 -HA00095, filed Feb 25, 2009.
Decision. West v. Harte, Feb 19, 2009.
Halstead R. Corte Madera chiropractor ordered to pay 2 patients more than $7,000. Contra Costa Times, Feb 28, 2000.
Swanson, board sue chiropractic clinic for predatory lending involving health care credit cards. Press release, Minnesota Attorney General, Aug 12, 2009.
be wary
Barrett S. Tips on choosing a chiropractor. Quackwatch, Oct 13, 2000.

This article was revised on November 13, 2009.

Don't Pay or Contract in Advance for Chiropractic Visits at a "Discount" Price