Michigan chiropractor marketing built for icy roads and the 30-day crash rule

You can advertise to everyone in Michigan. What you cannot do is reach out to one particular person you know was just hurt in a car crash. That pause lasts 30 days, and it covers your staff and anyone you pay to do it.

Michigan's crash solicitation law has been in force since January 1, 2014. It also protects the injured person's spouse, parent, child and sibling. Electronic messages count as contact. Under the same law, a first offense is a misdemeanor with a fine of up to $30,000, and a repeat can bring up to a year in jail or a $60,000 fine.

The law has two exits. The person asked you to contact them, or an insurer is adjusting a claim. Neither one covers a list of names.

Here is how we read the line for a practice's marketing:

• Fine: a search ad, a billboard or a radio spot seen by the public. None of those is aimed at one known person.
• Fine: answering a call, a form or a message the patient sent you first.
• Not fine: texting, mailing or calling names pulled from crash reports or police lists in the first 30 days.
• Not fine: a tow driver, body shop or "helpline" making that contact on your behalf.

So the plan starts with a written rule for the front desk and a check of every vendor that sends you crash patients. The chiropractic marketing page covers the federal privacy side of the same intake.

Auto insurers now pay a capped amount for crash care. That cap decides what a new crash patient is worth to you, so it should also decide what you spend to find one.

Michigan's crash-care fee cap pays most providers treating after July 1, 2023 no more than 190% of what Medicare pays for the same care. Where Medicare sets no amount, that cap falls to 52.5% of the practice's January 1, 2019 charge for most practices, under the same Michigan Legislature text.

The old rule that let no-fault refuse much of chiropractic care has also narrowed. The coverage section of the no-fault act now limits that exclusion to services given before July 2, 2021. That is our reading of the text, so check it with your biller.

Work injuries follow their own track. Michigan's workers' comp medical rule lets an employer refuse chiropractic outside the 2009 definition. It also lets the worker switch to a physician of their choice 28 days after care starts. A practice that wants those patients needs a page employers' injured staff can find on day 29.

The budget step is simple arithmetic. We take your own capped reimbursement per crash case and set the most you can pay per booked crash patient from it, not from numbers that predate the reform.

Michigan has no separate advertising rule for chiropractors. Instead, the health code punishes false or misleading ads, and the scope law decides what you can offer at all.

We found no advertising rule in the Board of Chiropractic's general rules. The policing comes from the health code's discipline list instead. It names false or misleading advertising, and it names splitting fees for patient referrals. A per-patient deal with a lead seller, a tow company or a law firm is the case to bring to counsel.

Michigan's chiropractic scope law sets the hard edges. A chiropractor may not do anything that cuts or punctures the skin, may not give drugs and uses x-ray for diagnosis only. So dry needling, injections and "prescription strength" wording stay out of the ads. The same law lets a licensee use the title "chiropractic physician", and nutrition advice and rehab exercise are in scope.

Claims need proof too. The FTC's health claims guidance says a practitioner's own observation of patients is anecdotal and does not prove an effect. So "our patients come off pain pills" or "adjustments lower blood pressure" needs real studies behind it, or it comes out.

This is how we read the rules for marketing, not legal advice; confirm with counsel.