Dear Ayurveda Community,
We received the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies report regarding our Sunrise Application for professional recognition and regulation of Ayurveda. This has been a long road, one that the COLORAMA Board of Directors chose to take only after careful consideration, professional guidance, committee input, and a great deal of communication and collaboration with key stake holders from across the United States and India.
We had three goals in mind for the profession in pursuing state regulatory oversight and licensure: credibility, increased access to coordinate care with our patients and client’s medical care providers, and a pathway to making Ayurveda accessible to those who can least afford alternative care, giving our providers the potential for joining insurance pools as a licensed healthcare modality.
At this time, DORA does not recommend that Ayurveda be regulated by the state of Colorado.
Our liaison with the department concluded that Ayurvedic Doctors, Ayurvedic Practitioners, and Ayurvedic Health Counselors need not be licensed to practice on the basis that there is no evidence of harm caused by the practice of Ayurveda stating specifically:
In an attempt to identify consumer harm related to Ayurvedic professionals, Colorado Office of Policy, Research and Regulatory Reform staff contacted a number of organizations, including: the Attorney General’s Office, Consumer Protection Section; Colorado Medical Board staff; the Colorado Medical Society; Division of Professions and Occupations staff, who provide administrative support for the regulation of naturopathic doctors; and the Better Business Bureau serving Greater Denver and Central Colorado. Each of the aforementioned organizations stated that they had not received any complaints against Ayurvedic professionals in the past few years. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that Ayurvedic professionals are not causing widespread harm to consumers who utilize their services.
As such, the department further concluded that because there is no evidence of harm, there is no need for minimum entry requirements, minimum levels of education or the need to pass an examination to practice in Colorado. Additionally, they concluded that minimum entry requirements may “potentially impose an unnecessary barrier to entry for professionals.”
It is the opinion of the Governance Committee of the Board of COLORAMA that, due to the fact that Ayurvedic professionals in Colorado are well trained and educated about our scopes of practice, and precisely because we have followed the letter of the law so carefully under current statute, the Colorado Natural Health Consumer Act (commonly referred to as “Health Freedom”), and additionally, because many of our Ayurvedic training institutions and schools require students to provide care under the auspices of consumer “education” and not “treatment,” that our practitioners are exceptionally careful and cautious to “first do no harm.”
We continue to be protected in our ability to practice under Colorado Health Freedom, and we can now confidently claim that the practice of Ayurveda has been deemed to be non-harmful. But we’ve known this all along, as our pundits tout the safety and efficacy of Ayurveda. However, given our many freedoms, Ayurvedic practitioners with the highest levels of training and clinical experience are still prohibited in Colorado from the full and complete practice of Ayurveda, including the administration of basti karma, providing treatment for the disorders or diseases of the eyes including netra basti, caring for pregnant mothers and newborns which are taught in both balāchikitsa and vajikarana branches of Ayurveda training, or any kind of shalya tantra surgical methods, among other highly effective, important, and definitive chikitsa treatments offered by Ayurveda. As such, we are actively reviewing current scopes of practice and future vision for the practice of Ayurveda in Colorado.
As always, we welcome your input as we continue to elevate and promote the practice of Ayurveda, uplift and protect our members, and educate the public about Ayurveda’s safety, efficacy, and its supreme importance in reclaiming health in the United States. May all beings be free from every type of suffering.
Heather Baines AD C-AP
President, Board of Directors
Colorado Ayurvedic Medical Association