California Board of Chiropractic adopts regulatory changes including higher mandatory hours for evaluation and management CE

The California Board of Chiropractic Examiners on April 17 approved a package of regulatory and administrative changes intended to tighten pre-licensure competency checks, clarify application procedures, and increase required continuing education hours in key practice areas.

Board members voted to: (1) adopt clarified regulatory text for applications and examinations that requires either NBCE Part IV passage within four years of application or documented active chiropractic practice in the preceding four years before a California license may be issued; (2) increase mandatory annual CE so that at least 6 of the required 12 mandatory CE hours must be in competency 1 (evaluation and management); (3) approve conforming edits specifying that exemptions for course instructors apply only to instructors at board-approved chiropractic programs; (4) proceed with updated citation regulations and related implementing edits; and (5) adopt staff responses and proceed with repeal of an obsolete regulation (CCR §3.54) that conflicted with existing law on unlicensed practice.

Why it matters: The package is aimed at ensuring greater current clinical competency among licensees, tightening the path to licensure for applicants who finished training many years earlier, and emphasizing continuing education focused on patient evaluation and management — areas the board identified as closely tied to public-protection…