For over two decades, NHFA has helped state level activists to pass Safe Harbor laws, which protect unlicensed healers such as herbalists, homeopaths, and Reiki practitioners from being charged with practicing medicine without a license.

But what about licensed health care professionals such as doctors and nurses? Can these professionals practice complementary or alternative care? Those who have, have faced intense scrutiny by their state professional licensing Boards and even loss of license in some cases.

The Model Expanded Health Care Practice Act, when passed in an individual state, would protect these professionals and expand their options similarly to the protection provided for unlicensed practitioners under Safe Harbor laws.

Under the Model Act, practitioners are protected under specified conditions:

• The treatment must have a reasonable basis for potential benefit to the patient.

• The treatment does not pose a greater risk of direct and significant physical or emotional harm to a patient when used as directed than that of conventional treatment that would have been recommended.

• Practitioners must provide expanded disclosures of their modalities and education to allow informed consent with a written acknowledgement.

NHFC attorneys Diane Miller and Steven O’Connor have created the attached video explaining the historical background, state efforts to give doctors more freedom, and what the Model Act would do.