On May 16th, before a packed hearing room, Small Business Committee Chairman Donald Manzullo (R-IL) and more than a dozen other members of the U.S. House of Representatives, pounded Medicare Administrator Thomas Scully for that program's ongoing policy of provider harassment.

In a four-hour hearing, witness after witness – including ICA's Central Regional Director Michael Hulsebus, D.C., of Rockford, Ill., told the Committee how Medicare had conducted completely unjustified and overtly hostile and prejudicial attacks, post-payment audits and other strong-arm activities aimed at hurting non-MD providers.

In response to the witnesses' compelling and sometimes emotional testimony, member after member of the Committee slammed Medicare's chief administrator for the arrogance, meanness and indefensible prejudice of that agency's operations and policies towards providers in general and doctors of chiropractic in particular.

The May 16 hearing, held in conjunction with ICA's Annual Legislative Work Day, provided the opportunity for ICA doctors of chiropractic from 35 states to witness Congress in action and to be present to support Dr. Hulsebus in his testimony.

This hearing marks a major change in the role Congress is willing to play in protecting Medicare providers and Medicare patients from the heavy handed, arbitrary and prejudice driven operations of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Formerly known as the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), the May 16 hearing was titled: "CMS, New Name, Same Old Game?"

In his opening statement, Chairman Manzullo stated: "On July 25, 2001, Administrator Scully voluntarily appeared before this Committee and stated that he intended to meet the goal of not simply changing the name of HCFA but changing its culture. Nearly a year later, the new name has been on HCFA's door but this hearing examines whether it is still the same old game. By that I mean, is HCFA still being intransigent and unresponsive to healthcare providers and to the elected officials that make the laws - the United States Congress?"

Is HCFA still imposing undue and unnecessary regulatory burdens on small business? The subsequent testimony from the panel of six witnesses was more than enough to convince the entire Committee that little had changed in the administration of the Medicare program and that drastic, urgent change, with intense Congressional oversight was called for.

Speaking on behalf of the chiropractic profession and the millions of Medicare patients D.C.s care for, Hulsebus told the Committee that nothing, neither Medicare procedures nor Medicare attitudes had changed since July of 2001, when Hulsebus first detailed Medicare's abusive treatment of chiropractic providers at a similar Small Business Committee hearing.

"I regret that I must state that far too little has changed since I testified before you last July and that the targeting of doctors of chiropractic for extra-aggressive and, I believe, totally unjust efforts aimed not at reducing fraud or abuse, but at reducing chiropractic 'utilization,' continue... Medicare administrators have historically made doctors of chiropractic a target for enforcement and regulatory restriction because of an abiding and still unabated medical prejudice that is a gross disservice to the beneficiary and doctor of chiropractic alike."

The evasive and seemingly insincere responses to Congressional questions from CMS Administrator Scully provoked a wave of emphatic and sometimes emotional challenges from the Committee, asserting the Administrator's personal responsibility to address the need for change and to drastically change the agency's prevailing attitudes, or else Congress will step in with unprecedented force.

The commitment of the Committee to fairness and to immediate change was pressed home, sometimes with raised voices, as Administrator Scully sat without a break for four full hours.

The anger and outrage of the Committee reached a peak when it was revealed that witnesses at earlier hearings on Medicare harassment had been subjected to snap Medicare audits on the very day they appeared before the Small Business Committee.

Chairman Manzullo immediately called for an investigation of what he described as intimidation and witness tampering by Medicare and set a July 17th hearing date for a full review of this "horrific and frightening" abuse of power by Medicare authorities.