I’m a nutritional therapist and not licensed. I do share space with my husband who is a chiropractor. My question is, I’ve been able to open accounts with Cyrex and Doctor’s Data and other labs because I do work under him. However, sometimes my clients are not his patients, and I order the labs for them anyway. Do you know if it’s legit to do that? I don’t run it through insurance, but if I did want to run it through their insurance, my understanding is they would need to see the chiropractor first to make that legal. Is that right? I’d love to know and discuss how to work in an office with a licensed practitioner.

Chris Kresser: Yeah, I think that is right. Generally the license holder will have to be the supervising clinician, and the patient has to be a patient of that clinician in order for insurance to cover the test. That’s definitely my understanding. As to whether it’s legit to order tests for some of your clients that are not his patients when they’re paying cash out of pocket, I guess it depends on what you mean by “legit.” I mean, if there was an investigation and some kind of legal action against you, the attorneys may not see it as legit, but in most cases, the labs are probably fine with it. It’s a question of your risk tolerance, I guess. I’m not advising that anyone do anything illegal, but I’m also just trying to make sure that patients and clients get the best possible care that they can get. It’s something that you or someone in your office could ask the labs and see if the labs have an issue with that. Ultimately the labs kind of are the arbiters of what they allow and don’t allow.