Colorado Natural Health Consumer Protection Act-Part 6

C.R.S. Unlicensed alternative health care practitioners - deceptive trade practices

Prohibiting psychotherapy, midwifery, medical protocols to pregnant women and clients who have cancer

Although the Colorado Natural Health Consumer Protection Act specifically states that unlicensed, uncertified, and unregistered practitioners shall not practice midwifery and shall not administer medical protocols to a pregnant woman or to a client who has cancer, it does not define what constitutes the practice of midwifery or medical protocols. It is generally accepted that midwifery refers to a health care profession that provides care to women during pregnancy, labor and birth, as well as postpartum care and newborn care. However, practitioners can and do play loose with terminology, so it may seem reasonable that practitioners could, as a course of care, advise a pregnant woman about nutrition and the practitioner's favorite supplements, meaning the supplements they sell. A definition for medical protocols is not as straightforward and can mean anything from medical guidelines to a set of rules for medical treatment. Medical protocols are followed by health care professionals, but practitioners, with their love of loose jargon, could reason that they would be allowed to administer un-medical protocols.

The Colorado Natural Health Care Consumer Protection Act falls short in some areas by not providing clear definitions, however, in prohibiting psychotherapy, the definition is very specific, citing C.R.S. 12-43-201(9), which states,

"Psychotherapy" means the treatment, diagnosis, testing, assessment, or counseling in a professional relationship to assist individuals or groups to alleviate mental disorders, understand unconscious or conscious motivation, resolve emotional, relationship, or attitudinal conflicts, or modify behaviors that interfere with effective, social, or intellectual functioning. Psychotherapy follows a planned procedure of intervention that takes place on a regular basis, over a period of time, or in the cases of testing, assessment, and brief psychotherapy, psychotherapy can be a single intervention.

The Colorado Natural Health Consumer Protection Act includes the prohibition of practicing psychotherapy and provides a specific definition as an appropriate response to the inroads the complementary and alternative health industry has made into the field of psychotherapy by concocting new lines of business, which includes psychosomatic practice, health coach, and mind, body, and spiritual coach.

Consumers are, theoretically, protected from psychosomatic practitioners, health coaches, and mind, body, and spiritual coaches who do not have the education, skills, and training to practice psychotherapy. However, in order for this law to truly work, consumers who seek health care in the complementary and alternative health industry will not only need to have knowledge of the law itself, they will also need knowledge of important definitions, check information practitioners are required to give them and also, be able to discern if a practitioner is performing outside or beyond their training, experience, or competence.

The Colorado Natural Health Consumer Protection Act, for the most part, works in favor of the consumers, but consumers have a lot of work to do to ensure the law is working for them.

The Colorado Natural Health Consumer Protection Act can be read here