This site is dedicated to support the complementary alternative medicine community in understanding and implementing the New Mexico “Unlicensed Health Care Practice Act”, HB 664.
We are a group of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative health care (CAM) practitioners, educators, administrators and general public who have worked to get this bill passed in New Mexico. We are not attorneys or experts, the information on this site should not be taken as legal advice. You should consult with an attorney or other expert as to how this statute pertains to you and your practice. With that being said, we hope to provide some useful information for CAM practitioners in the State of NM.
People’s access to and the practitioner’s right to practice traditional, cultural, complementary and alternative health care therapies were not protected by law. The "Unlicensed Health Care Practice Act" statute is constructed in a way which allows traditional and alternative unlicensed practitioners in New Mexico to legally practice their healing traditions, as long as they stay within certain guidelines.
You can find out what your rights and responsibilities are as an unlicensed health care practitioner by reading the New Mexico "Unlicensed Health Care Practice Act" with explanatory commentary by NMCAAMP. Useful resources for the practitioner have also been assembled under Practitioner Support, such as checklists to create required documentation and sample forms for you to modify to meet your individual needs.
Find out what the Legislature passed in April 2009 is and how it affects you as an unlicensed health care practitioner.
See Practitioner Support section to download sample forms to help you with your clients.
The "Unlicensed Health Care Practice Act" statute is constructed in a way which allows traditional and alternative unlicensed practitioners in New Mexico to legally practice their healing traditions, as long as they stay within certain guidelines.
The documents and links below include the statue itself, an explanation of the most important parts of the statue as they apply to practitioners, contact information for the legislators that sponsored this legislation and a history of the legislation leading up to the passage of the NM Unlicensed Health Care Practice Act:
This site is dedicated to support the CAM community in understanding and implementing the New Mexico "Unlicensed Health Care Practice Act". We hope to provide the CAM community with some useful information. Below you will find documents that we hope will give you a head start in developing your own paperwork.
The Patient Information Document is required of all unlicensed health care practitioners in NM. This checklist is taken word for word from the New Mexico Unlicensed Health Care Practice Act and reformatted so that practitioners may more easily create their own document incorporating all the required statements.
This is a sample of a medical referral form. According to Section 4.H. an unlicensed health care practitioner may not make a specific conventional medical diagnosis. However, it seems prudent that a complementary and alternative health care practitioner may indicate to the client that he or she has a concern that the client might be predisposed to or may have a certain condition and should go to a licensed health care provider. This document can be used to indicate this concern.
This is a sample of a Patient Recommendation Form. It defines the goals and expected results (Section 5.4.), lists the recommendations to be incorporated, indicates for how long the recommendations are valid and requires the patient’s signature indicating receipt. It also documents that no recommendation was made to discontinue current medical treatment prescribed by a licensed health care practitioner in accordance with Section 4.G.
This is a sample Patient Information Document incorporating all the required statements as an example of what your own might look like.
We are not attorneys or experts, the information on this site should not be taken as legal advice. You should consult with an attorney or other expert as to how this statute pertains to you and your practice.
National Health Freedom Coalition: There are several national and many state organizations devoted to health freedom. The National Health Freedom Coalition has been very active and is where Diane Miller, JD works. She has been instrumental in the legislative efforts in MN and CA, and has helped guide NMCAAMP’s legislation in New Mexico.
US Senate Committee on Health Education: The US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions met this past February and had Dr. Mehmet C. Oz, Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. Dean Ornish, and Dr. Andy Weil, presenting. This is an incredible video recording. It is over 2 hours in length and is well worth the time to listen to in order to understand what information is being discussed in the US government. Title: Integrative Care: A Pathway to a Healthier Nation Date: Thursday, February 26, 10:00 a.m.
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine: The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) is the Federal Government's lead agency for scientific research on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). 1 of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The mission of NCCAM is to: Explore complementary and alternative healing practices in the context of rigorous science. Train complementary and alternative medicine researchers. Disseminate authoritative information to the public and professionals.
These two attorney’s specialize in issues of licensed and unlicensed CAM providers and each have websites with a lot of information:
There have been many articles on CAM practice. These two represent one of the first and one of the more recent articles: “Unconventional Medicine in the United States” Eisenberg, et. al. New England Journal of Medicine January 28, 1993
“Alternative Medicine Is Mainstream” Chopra, Ornish, Roy & Weil, Wall Street Journal January 9, 2009
New Mexico is the 7th State to successfully introduce legal rights to unlicensed health care practitioners. Minnesota was one of the first states and California has one of the simplest pieces of legislation. Links to both are below:
California Complementary and Alternative Health Care Practitioners Act Senate Bill 577
Minnesota Complementary and Alternative Health Care Practices Care Act