Letter: Widening approved medical practices will help Nevadans

Friday, May 30, 1997 | 11:44 a.m.

Does this sound unfair to you? Nevertheless, it is a dilemma that thousands upon thousands of Nevadans face each year, and you may eventually be one of them.

Recent surveys published in major medical journals have indicated that more than 50 percent of Americans have sought their medical care from alternative health-care practitioners. The major reason for this shift is simply that conventional medicine is unable to help a large number of patients with their medical conditions. The unfortunate situation is that, due to the fact that insurance companies routinely refuse to pay for alternative health care, these patients must pay out of their pocket to receive the treatments they need. This is grossly unfair. People pay way too much money for medical insurance, only to be told by some insurance review panel that their policy will not cover alternative treatments, even when the conventional treatments that they do cover have proven to have failed.

A bill being introduced by Assemblyman Lyn Hettrick from Gardnerville will remedy this problem. This bill, AB418, is about fairness, and requires insurance companies to cover medical care rendered by professional, licensed health-care providers regardless of whether or not the treatments are considfered "usual and customary" by conventional standards.

Dr. Frank Shallenberger, Minden