Dr Della M. Schmid, DC, MS, has been appointed to the American Medical Association’s Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) Health Care Professionals Advisory Committee (HCPAC).

The announcement of the appointment was made recently by American Chiropractic Association (ACA).

Schmid has been in private practice in Newtown for more than 30 years and has been a member of ACA “for many years,” she said last week.

HCPAC’s CPT Advisory Committee serves as a resource to the CPT Editorial Panel, which maintains the CPT code set used across the healthcare industry to report procedures and services and to process claims. HCPAC members represent limited-license practitioners and other allied health professionals, providing advice on procedure coding and terminology relevant to their specialty.

Schmid was one of three chiropractors from across the country selected for the new ACA Health Policy Fellowship. Launched in late 2023 by the ACA Code Development and Valuation Subcommittee, the fellowship educated doctors of chiropractic about health policy, coding and other complex issues and prepared them to advocate on behalf of the profession, according to an ACA release.

ACA member Morgan Price, DC, a staff chiropractor for Veterans Administration Puget Sound Health Care System in Seattle, Wash., will serve as her alternate.

In a statement announcing the appointments, ACA President Marc Nynas, DC, said Schmid and Price “are well prepared to represent the chiropractic profession on AMA’s HCPAC advisory board.

“We are excited to have them join ACA’s efforts to ensure that services provided by doctors of chiropractic are represented accurately through the CPT codes,” Nynas added.

Schmid and the others went through training for a year, meeting once or twice a month online. They were taught by doctors in their field, including a previous ACA president, who have worked on health policy before, she said.

“We would observe AMA meetings that were dealing with CPT and valuation of these codes,” Schmid explained November 7. She and the others began to become involved “with what goes into this coding book that AMA puts out every year.”

Two Distinct Groups Of Advisors

The book has two very distinct sections. One covers CPT — “this is like our dictionary, our language, for all healthcare providers to use to communicate with other healthcare providers and with insurance companies,” she said — while the other is concerned with valuation codes.

ACA Advisors also fill the seats for the valuation section, which is concerned with the hosts of healthcare, Schmid explained.

“How much does it cost for a physician to examine a patient? What’s the cost of running an office — staffing, supplies? What’s the cost of a physician to replace a knee? What’s the value of that?” she said. “We have the procedure cost, but what’s the value of that? It’s those two parts Medicare looks at when they’re deciding what reimbursement is, and also what health insurance companies look at and what’s a reimbursement, and what’s allowed for healthcare professionals to bill,” she further explained.

Representatives from myriad healthcare organizations — anesthesiologists, medical doctors, physical therapists, audiologists, et al — “any type of healthcare provider that you can think of, they all have representatives that have been elected to this group, who then meet three times a year and review the CPT codes,” Schmid said. The meetings are to see if new codes need to be added, existing codes need to be updated, or outdated codes need to be deleted, she said.

“There are thousands of codes, and there are subcodes,” she said. “If you have sciatica, for instance, we need to know if it’s on the left or right side. If you have an acute neck sprain, or a sprain, we need to know what location it is. Is it in your spine, or your shoulder, or somewhere else?”

While Schmid’s appointment is to represent chiropractics, she and other advisors do look at other professions and their codes “when it’s appropriate,” she said.

At the end of her fellowship, Schmid and the others all took a test. Upon passing that test, Schmid was also invited to represent ACA as a CPT HCPAC Advisor to the American Medical Association. The appointment by the AMA Board of Trustees was done in April. She is now representing fellow chiropractors for a three-year term.

“I am very excited about this opportunity,” she said November 7. “I get to collaborate with other professions, and no matter how different we do in our offices, we all have the same challenges with healthcare insurance and coding.

“It made me realize that we’re all in this together, and it’s fun to be able to work with other providers,” she added. “It’s nice to be doing this on a much larger scale. I never imagined that I’d be doing something like this. I’ve learned so much in just a few months.”

January Panel

As a result of her new ACA appointment, Schmid has also been invited to be on a panel during the national ACA conference to be presented in January in Washington, D.C.

Schmid and others will be speaking about collaboration during “ACA Engage 2026,” the annual conference that draws doctors of chiropractic and chiropractic students from across the country for opportunities to connect with colleagues, meet with members of Congress on Capitol Hill, and participate in professional development through panel discussions, lectures, and presentations from respected leaders.

“All healthcare professionals are working together for the better good of our patients, and we support each other,” she said. “To me, it’s about having a seat at the table.”

Schmid last week said many people still don’t always understand “what chiropractors treat, how they treat, and the benefits of it.”

The treatment has become more popular, she added. More people seek chiropractic treatment, “we’re accepted by insurance now — we used to not be — and we get referrals from other healthcare providers all the time now,” she said.

The new appointment, she said, is a very exciting step for her.

“It’s important for people to see that we all do a lot to support and work with each other,” she said. “There is so much collaboration, and I’m so happy to be part of this. I feel fortunate to be part of it.”

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Managing Editor Shannon Hicks can be reached at shannon@thebee.com.