John Weeks is the publisher of the Integrator Blog News & Reports, a very interesting project that attempts to cover all sides of the issues surrounding the inclusion of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) in mainstream healthcare delivery. Recently, The International Association of Yoga Therapists has sponsored a series of articles on the future of Yoga therapy on Weeks’ blog.
This recent posting is quite revealing. It is a Q&A between Weeks and Tino Villani, DC – a chiropractor who’s the president and CEO of Triad Healthcare, a company that manages healthcare networks with emphasis on chiropractic and physical therapy.
Here is Villani’s perspective, both as a Chiropractor, and as a managed care expert, on the effect of the inclusion of his profession in insurance reimbursement:
“It is my opinion that this coverage has, to this point, re-directed chiropractic from its patient-centered origins. It has impaired the profession’s ability to offer its most meaningful contribution to the public. While my opinions are arguably in the minority, I believe inclusion has, in balance, been bad for the profession.”
His views are highly consistent with what I’ve been saying all along about how completely we Yoga Teachers and Therapists should avoid any involvement in 3rd party reimbursement for our services because it would mean the destruction of the integrity of the student/teacher relationhip.
I recommend The Intergrator blog as a rich resource for information about these issues. Unfortunately, the blog’s comment feature is pretty non-functional, so I would encourage you to post comments here on e-Sutra, and I will be sure to pass them along to John Weeks.
This is a dialogue that I highly encourage all of you to join. Incedentally, Mr. Weeks will be presenting at the IAYT SYTAR event in January, and he will be on a panel called: “YOGA AS AN EMERGING COMPLEMENTARY AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE (CAM) PROFESSION that will be moderated by IAYT Executive Director John Kepner and myself.
