Inequity has no place in Oregon…

Stand with Oregon Naturopathic Physicians for fair pay from health insurance plans.

Oregon has licensed naturopathic physicians (NDs) since 1927. The profession enjoys an outstanding safety record while bringing patient centered care to Oregonians who desire more than medications in response to their health concerns. See: “What is the difference between a Naturopathic Doctor and a Medical Doctor?”

Because it takes more time with each patient to truly practice patient centered medicine, a busy ND sees at most 8 patients per day. For this attentive care the health insurance plans reimburse NDs on average 50% per visit. Meanwhile, the typical family practice MD sees 22 patients per day for which the insurance plans reimburse each visit at 100%. For an MD visit, that works out to 20 minutes to prepare to see you, visit you in person for up to 7 minutes, then have staff order prescriptions, imaging, lab work and complete a chart note for them to sign later. Everything about this production model of healthcare is rushed and superficial, most often ending with a drug prescription. No insights are explored on how the patient might come to require less medications, or restore as much health as possible. From the point of view of an ND that spends more than twice as much time per patient visit, this kind of care looks ever more dangerous the ever more drug prescriptions that are added to a person.

The typical primary care MD is taking home more than $200,000 per year personal income. If you do the math, it is not feasible to see less than half as many patients and also get paid half as much for each visit. For insurance based naturopathic practices, the situation is beyond desperate. It is only our dedication to our medicine and our patients that keeps us in practice.

Health insurance discrimination against NDs hurts you the patient, the doctor you rely upon, and the state of Oregon’s investments to have an adequate health care workforce. As more and more NDs are driven away from accepting health insurance or from practicing at all by this inequity of health insurance plans, choice is taken away from everyone.

We need your help to say NO to health insurance discrimination against Naturopathic Doctors.

The Oregon Association of Naturopathic Physicians through the help of legislative champions will be bringing an ND Pay Parity bill back to the 2023 legislative session, our 4th time. Sign up now so we can keep you informed about our efforts and so you can remind those who represent you in Salem that removing this inequity is important for you and the people of Oregon.

Below are the two flyers used in the 2022 legislative session for House Bill 4006. HB 4006 was the third legislative session a bill was brought forth requiring fair pay for ND visits. For the third time opposition to this bill from the health insurance industry and the conventional medicine establishment was able to stall the bill at the Ways and Means committee leadership.