By Ashley Booker |

Testimony in Topeka on a bill that would expand who could clear middle school and high school athletes to return to sports after a head injury revealed a split between medical doctors and chiropractors.

Currently, the state’s school sports statutes only allow medical doctors and doctors of osteopathic medicine to sign a written clearance following a concussion. Bryan Payne, immediate past president of the Kansas Chiropractic Association, said during a legislative hearing that chiropractors currently are able to diagnose and treat concussions but aren’t allowed to sign the form to release their patients to play or practice.

“Chiropractic physicians are very well-trained to diagnose and treat concussions,” Payne said. “We go through an extensive period of our education, and all chiropractic programs hold that stringent education requirement.” Chiropractors generally have more training in anatomy but less in physiology than medical doctors (M.D.) and doctors of osteopathic medicine (D.O.).

Chiropractic school is similar in length to medical school, but chiropractors have fewer residency requirements afterward. The proposed bill, HB 2016, was discussed Wednesday in the House Health and Human Services Committee. It would change the definition of health care provider within the school sports act from a M.D. or D.O. to a “licensee of the healing arts,” as defined by a separate state statute that includes chiropractors.

Sean Hubbard, who owns a chiropractic and balance center in Wichita, told the committee that after treating patients for head injuries, he must tell them to go back to their M.D. or D.O. to clear them to return to their field of play. “(That’s) one more day off work, one more day out of school — and many of these kids I end up seeing have missed weeks of school at a time,”

Hubbard said. “So that just adds another undue burden when they are ready to go back.” One of Hubbard’s patients, Ryan King, a graduate student at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, has suffered four concussions in his lifetime.

The first occurred when he was playing a club soccer game in high school. He told the committee how chiropractic care from Hubbard relieved symptoms that couldn’t be cured with more traditional medicine. The symptoms from his concussions were so debilitating,

King said, that he removed himself from sports between concussions, became depressed and had to take a semester off from college. King’s pastor suggested he see Hubbard, and within a couple weeks of chiropractic care, King was able to go a full day without a headache.

He was shocked when he heard the Kansas State High School Activities Association and the state don’t give chiropractors the authority to clear athletes for competition. King said the current law is “doing a disservice to all Kansas athletes that have or will get concussions in the seasons to come.”

After the hearing, Rachelle Colombo, director of government affairs for the Kansas Medical Society, said there is a distinction between chiropractic training and medical training. “Physicians should be the one to make the call on return to play,” Colombo said, “because physicians and those who work under a physician-led team are trained in a medical model that’s trained in the whole body.”

The medical society represents medical doctors from across the state. Bart Grelinger, an M.D. and board-certified neurologist in Wichita, also told the committee that the treatment of concussions should stay within the traditional medical community. Grelinger said physicians look at the patient holistically, considering what diseases they have, what medications they are on that could be affected by the head injury and what medications could help relieve symptoms. “A concussion is going to make those particular medical diseases more problematic,” he said. “Physicians cannot be left out of the loop. … It affects the health of the patient far beyond just a concussion.”

Rep. Dick Jones, a Republican from Topeka, asked whether chiropractors and medical doctors could work together to treat concussions and clear athletes for play. Grelinger said it’s an option, and referrals happen often in medicine. But Grelinger said care of head injury patients needs to be kept in a “physician-led group.”

After the hearing, Rep. Jim Ward, a Democrat from Wichita, said the bill’s future hinges on lawmakers’ level of confidence in chiropractors to diagnose and treat head injuries. Doug Smith, executive director of the Kansas Academy of Physician Assistants, proposed an amendment to include physician assistants in the concussion clearance process. He said his organization is neutral on the underlying bill.

Ashley Booker is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.

ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Whose Internet is it anyway?

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission says he’s keeping that question in mind as he pitches the biggest regulatory shake-up to the telecommunications industry since 1996.

Tom Wheeler hasn’t come out with his plan yet, and might not for a few weeks. But he has suggested that Internet service has become as critical to people in the United States as water, electricity or phone service and should be regulated like any other public utility.

Wheeler says he wants “yardsticks in place to determine what is in the best interest of consumers as opposed to what is in the best interest of the gatekeepers.”

That has the industry sounding the alarms and warning consumers of a tax increase on each U.S. wireless account.

By Austin Fisher
KU Statehouse Wire Service

TOPEKA — The Kansas Commission on Veterans Affairs asked the House to consider a bill that would give veterans and their families stationed in Kansas in-state tuition to public colleges, even if they’re not originally from Kansas.

Testifying before the Veterans, Military and Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Becky Hutchins (R-Holton) said the bill would put Kansas in compliance with the federal Veterans, Choice and Accountability Act, also called the Choice Act.

Regardless of formal residence, the Choice Act covers veterans and their spouses or children who enroll in a higher learning institution wherever they’re stationed within three years after the veteran has been discharged from 90 or more days of service. Surviving spouses or children receiving Marine Gunnery Sergeant John David Fry Scholarship benefits can enroll within three years after the veteran has died in the line of duty.

“Say you’re stationed here and your daughter wants to go to KU, it would address some of those issues,” Hutchins said. “If her father is currently a veteran and fighting in a foreign country for our freedoms, I think it’s the honorable thing to do.”

Wayne Bollig, deputy director of the Kansas Commission on Veterans Affairs, said the law would mirror a Texas statute that complies with the Choice Act. According to the advocacy organization Student Veterans of America, Texas is one of 27 states that provide in-state tuition to veterans, and the only state that is fully compliant with the Choice Act.

Bollig said veterans received almost $104 million in education benefits and more than $559 million in medical benefits in fiscal year 2014.

Commission Director Gregg Burden said their mission is to assist Kansas’ nearly quarter million veterans and their families with “education, health, vocational guidance and placement, and economic security,” and to ensure Kansas remains a “veteran-friendly state.” Through its State Veteran Services Program, the Commission will assist veterans, relatives, and survivors to obtain the maximum amount of federal and state benefits.

After veterans retire, the Commission provides long-term health care through their Veterans’ Home Program.

Burden, who served in the military for 26 years, was appointed by Gov. Sam Brownback when the Commission replaced the Kansas Commission on Veterans Affairs in July 2014.

Pam Rodriguez, chief financial officer of the Commission, said her office is asking the House committee to lift spending caps that currently require the Commission to carry over revenue from veterans’ fees and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to the next fiscal year.

“That’s money that we could be spending on veterans,” Rodriguez said.

Rep. Carolyn Bridges (D-Wichita) said she hopes the new law will encourage out-of-state veterans to stick around after college.

“The idea is that once they get out of school, they will call Kansas their home,” she said.

Austin Fisher is a University of Kansas senior from Lawrence majoring in journalism. He can be reached at [email protected].

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Gallup has long been known for phone polling, but the company is migrating away from that technology and toward online data collection.

Spokesman Johnathan Tozer told the Lincoln Journal Star that the change is “part of Gallup’s long-term migration plan toward online data collection, in addition to our sophisticated analytics and consulting.”

The company says attrition and transfers or promotions will help Gallup cut back its call center staff in Lincoln and Omaha.

Experts say phone polling has become less reliable as more people drop land lines. A 2012 Pew Research Center study showed that the percentage of households in which polling companies were able to reach an adult by phone fell to 62 percent in 2012 from 90 percent in 1997.