A just-introduced bill in Colorado would expressly exempt several bodywork modalities from most state regulation.
Included in the exemptions are reflexology; Rolfing; mind-body centering; Orthobionomy; and “practices with the primary purpose of affecting energy systems of the human body,” including reiki and Healing Touch.
SB 215, or The Colorado Natural Health Consumer Protection Act, is being touted by the National Health Freedom Coalition as a move to protect access to “traditional, complementary and alternative health care practitioners in Colorado.” The coalition lobbies for health-freedom laws nationwide.
The bill does provide for some oversight of the exempted practices, stating that a person providing complementary and alternative health care services must disclose to clients the practitioner’s educational background and the nature of the services to be provided. The bill also prohibits complementary and alternative health care practitioners from engaging in activities that only state-regulated health care professionals may perform.
Colorado’s massage therapists are considered health care professionals, and massage therapy would continue to be regulated; the state’s massage therapists must complete 500 hours’ education from an accredited school and pass the Massage & Bodywork Licensing Exam or the National Certification Exam for Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork.
The coalition has just announced its 2013 United States Health Freedom Congress, the purpose of which is to “identify top health freedom issues and topics that are impacting health freedom; find areas of common ground and pass resolutions; and to work together to identify strategies for enhanced health freedom.”