Tell Medicare to Allow All Nutrition Specialists to Design Therapeutic Hospital Diets!

Recipients

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)

Contact

*Required fields

* Title:

* First Name:

* Last Name:

* Your Email:

* Address 1:

Address 2:

* City:

* Province / State:

* Postal / ZIP Code:

Country:

* Phone Number:

Yes, I would like to receive periodic updates and communications from Alliance for Natural Health USA.

Remember me. What's this?

Message

* Subject:

Dear [Decision Maker],

* Personalize your message

I was pleased to read about your proposed revisions to the Medicare rules, specifically where you would revise the requirement that a therapeutic diet must be prescribed only by the practitioners responsible for the care of the patient -- particularly since few physicians know anything about nutrition. Unfortunately, you would now allow Registered Dietitians (and only Registered Dietitians, not Certified Nutrition Specialists or other highly qualified nutrition professionals) to prescribe a therapeutic diet.

You write, "We believe that RDs are the professionals who are best qualified to assess a patient's nutritional status and to design and implement a nutritional treatment plan." Perhaps you are unaware that other credentialed nutrition professionals may have more experience and more academic training than RDs. In fact, more often than not, the credentialing agencies that specialize in nutrition have a more extensive certifying process than the dietetics organization, such as requiring an advanced degree and over 1000 hours of supervised experience that includes clinical research and education in medical nutrition therapy.

While RDs are more likely to be found in hospital settings, there is no need to create an exclusive scope of practice, in effect a monopoly, for one private credentialed organization. Instead, it should be based on education and experience. The US Department of Labor places hospital diets under the control of both dietitians and nutritionists. Medicare rules should follow the same guidelines.

As you revise your rules, please ensure that all qualified and certified nutrition professionals are allowed to prescribe therapeutic diets in hospital settings, not just Registered Dietitians. We cannot support Medicare rules that create a monopoly for RDs at the expense of often better-qualified nutrition professionals.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City, State ZIP]
[Your Email]

Protecting Natural Health