History of Chiropractic America

Chiropractic America was the first company to create a chiropractic website, the first company to air national television advertisements for chiropractic, the first company to run national magazine advertisements for chiropractic, the first company to air national radio advertisements for chiropractic and is now the first company to bring a world class health care public relations firm to the table to promote chiropractic, Feinstein Kean Healthcare, the health care division of Ogilvy PR Worldwide.

It all began when The Chiropractic Alliance of New Jersey was formed in 1992 to advocate for the chiropractic profession. Almost instantly they had an impact, filing a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuit against the New Jersey Department of Insurance, Fraud Division and the state’s 12 largest insurance carriers (Chiropractic Alliance of New Jersey v. Parisi). Their lawsuit was designed to stop the practice of using uninvestigated and unsubstantiated allegations of insurance irregularity to essentially extort civil fines from chiropractors and other healthcare practitioners. (Most chiropractors, despite having done nothing wrong, would choose to pay the fines rather than face the prospect of the Division significantly disrupting or shutting down their practices to conduct a baseless investigation.)

The case was decided in favor the Chiropractic Alliance of NJ and this illegal practice was halted. Louis Parisi, the longtime director of the Fraud Division under whose tenure this practice became commonplace, resigned shortly thereafter. Richard Jaffe Esq., a Houston health care attorney who led the fight stated afterward that this was the first time the RICO Act had been successfully used against a governmental investigative body. “Dateline NBC” did a feature story on this lawsuit as it resulted in the reversal of similar laws disproportunately attacking chiropractors in 17 other states.

On the heels of this monumental victory, The Chiropractic Alliance of New Jersey was incorporated as the Whole Health Chiropractic Network (later renamed Chiropractic America) in 1994 with the goal of extending beyond advocacy to promotion of the profession. The vision was to create a unifying public relations and advertising campaign that would be both affordable for all doctors and reach millions of prospective patients with the chiropractic message.

Chiropractic America developed a marketing strategy for chiropractors that mirrored the highly successful 1 800 DENTIST program which was redefining dental care in the United States. Company founder, Gary Pomeroy, knew that public relations, advertising and a unified national strategy were needed if chiropractic was ever to gain the mainstream acceptance it so rightfully deserved. This was the first national marketing/public relations effort for chiropractic ever created and was one of many firsts for the profession that Chiropractic America accomplished.

On February 27^th, 1995, the first full page, full color chiropractic ad ran in People magazine. For the first time in history, national media exposure benefiting the profession of chiropractic with a strong positive message about the benefits of care and a national 1-800 referral service was directing patients to participating chiropractor’s offices from New York to Hawaii. The battle to get these ads placed in Time Warner and other major publications was hard fought, but tenacity paid off. Full page, full color ads in People, Newsweek, Better Homes and Gardens, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, Woman’s Day, Country Living, Home Magazine, Working Mother and others followed and continued through 1998.

In March 1996, Chiropractic America built the first chiropractic website, www.ChiroUSA.com. The site won several awards including the Looksmart / Microsoft award for creative sites. The ChiroUSA site was honored as being one of the first 450 database driven websites in the world. This award included a feature story in Reader’s Digest which gave the site national exposure at no cost to the member doctors. This was the first national public relations coup for chiropractic, Chiropractic America and its members: free national PR.

Throughout 1996, Chiropractic America produced dozens of 30 and 60 second television spots. The commercials were produced by Chiropractic America and Intermedia Inc. of Los Angeles and featured chiropractic patients directly from member practices along with Mark Victor Hansen, Joe DiAngelis (Mr. Universe), Judy Norton of the Walton’s and other celebrity chiropractic patients. Hundreds of commercials aired nationally on cable networks from 1997 to 1999. The first ever nationally aired, network television, prime time commercials for chiropractic ran during the NBA playoffs June 10th,12th, 14th and 17th 1998 followed by the US Open Championship, the Michigan 400 Nascar race and the Pennzoil 200 Indy car race later that same month.

Also in 1998, radio commercials were added to the effort. The commercials were written and produced by Gary at the WABC Studio in New York. More than 1,000 commercials aired on nationally syndicated radio shows including Dr. Laura, Ken Hamblin, Sean Hannity and many others.

That same year, Gary negotiated the first national major media sponsorship for chiropractic. Chiropractic America and New York’s WABC radio, the top syndicated news/talk radio station in the country co-sponsored Chiropractic Awareness Month in January and 160 radio spots aired on topics that included: chiropractic care for the prevention of illness and injury; pain relief; treating the source of disease through chiropractic care; and the vertebral subluxation and its related dangers. The spots were written and produced by Gary and were read on air by WABC radio hosts. Others were co-written and recorded for broadcast by Dr. Bob Hoffman and Drs. Stuart and Theresa Warner. In addition, WABC ran 12 public service announcements per week promoting Chiropractic Awareness Month.

While working diligently to promote chiropractic, Chiropractic America became aware that the New Jersey legislature wanted to rein in the increasing cost of automobile insurance. Their solution was to pass the Auto Insurance Cost Reduction Act on May 19, 1998. The new law established care paths that greatly restricted those injured in motor vehicle accidents from accessing chiropractic care. Under that mandate, people injured in auto accidents were restricted to four visits.

The care paths were developed by Price, Waterhouse and Coopers (PWC), a large accounting firm which used a team of “three individuals with medical degrees, two nurses, and one MBA.” There were no chiropractors on the PWC team.

On November 4, 1998 Chiropractic America, filed suit against New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman, the commissioner of the Dept. of Banking and Insurance Jaynee LaVecchia, and the assistant commissioner for legislative and regulatory affairs to block the state’s new auto insurance reform law from going into effect (Chiropractic America v. LaVecchia).

Richard Jaffe Esq. again led the judicial battle for Chiropractic America. “This case has national significance,” Mr. Jaffe told the Houston Business Journal. “It will determine who makes treatment decisions: the doctor and the patient, or the state government and the insurance companies.”

And it did in fact have national significance. After a lengthy court battle, this case was finally decided in the US 3^rd Circuit Court of Appeals. Chiropractic America was victorious and the insurance reform law was blocked.

Also in 1998, Chiropractic America successfully convinced the Florida Attorney General to reverse a rule that would have severely limited chiropractor’s ability to participate in any form of collective advertising. This time he was able to protect the rights of chiropractors without taking it all the way to the US Supreme Court. By testifying and presenting valid arguments, he was able to stop the rule (Rule 64B2-15.001 Florida Administrative Code) in its tracks.

Unfortunately for Chiropractic America and for chiropractic, by this time managed care was dramatically shifting financial realities and focus within the profession. By 1999, Chiropractic America’s membership numbers had begun to drop significantly. The advertising-oriented model that had been so helpful for the profession in the early to mid-1990s was no longer enough to overcome the realities of survival in a managed care driven healthcare system, and many chiropractors were forced to restrict their investment in marketing in order to afford other expenses of practice management.

In 2005, at the urging of another longtime friend, Gary was convinced that the timing was right for the effort to be revived – and that in fact it was needed more than ever before. There had been no market growth for some years and the reputation of the profession was lagging. Shortly thereafter, Gary found out he had cancer.

Gary spent the last few months he was able to work attending Parker Seminar in Las Vegas, meeting with leaders both inside and outside chiropractic in Colorado, Utah, Florida, Massachusetts and other locations garnering support for a reinvigorated and refocused Chiropractic America.

The results is a new website, www.YourSpine.com that serves as a central base to aggregate the power of thousands of doctors nationwide to promote spinal health and chiropractic. The new site is written for consumers as a spinal health advocacy and patient education resource. A program has been designed to place the site at the top of the search engine results for hundreds of health related web queries, thereby placing information about the benefits of chiropractic care in the hands of internet users at the exact moment they are in need of care.

The nation’s leading healthcare public relations firm, the Feinstein Kean Healthcare division of Ogilvy PR Worldwide has been retained to drive the message of chiropractic into the mainstream media. Establishing this relationship was literally the last act of Gary’s long and productive career as a servant to the chiropractic community. Additionally, national co-sponsorship arrangements are in negotiation that will continue and expand the tradition established through Gary’s earlier efforts.

Gary’s life work has been to spread the message of chiropractic. He inspired that passion in me, and I will continue the valuable work he began through Chiropractic America. Like many others involved with the chiropractic profession, I am indebted to Gary for his tireless efforts, and grateful for all he accomplished.

Garrison Younger Pomeroy
6-14-1957 to 11-28-2006