PHOENIX - A bill designed to put the brakes on ambulance chasing by chiropractors has passed the House and Senate.

Legislators, along with the state Chiropractic Examiners Board, hope that by imposing disciplinary sanctions House Bill 2098 will stop a handful of Phoenix-area chiropractors from recruiting patients at the scene of an accident.

Terry Peterson, president of the Arizona Association of Chiropractic, called this form of patient solicitation unethical. The association, which represents about 1,200 chiropractors, is supporting the bill.

Peterson said the practice, called "capping," occurs when a chiropractor has someone monitor a police scanner listening for accidents. When one comes over the scanner the person then goes to the scene to either pass out business cards or set up appointments for people involved in the collision.

The bill would give the board the authority to conduct a hearing and place sanctions against a chiropractor who contacts someone who, within the past 15 days, was involved in a fight or car or work-related accident and was not previously known to the chiropractor.

The bill not only carries penalties for personally approaching potential patients, but it also would restrict chiropractors from sending faxes or calling the person on the telephone within the 15-day moratorium. Punishment could include a $500 fine, probation or the suspension or revocation of a doctor's license.

Peterson said this form of recruitment was discovered about four months ago, but only three or four chiropractors are known to recruit patients by capping.

Peterson also said he has heard of hospital emergency room employees participating in a similar scam where they help recruit patients for chiropractors. He said that besides being unethical, this practice is a violation of patient confidentiality laws.

Republican Sen. Tom Patterson, a Phoenix emergency room physician, said he had never heard of this type of practice, but if it does exist, the hospital should discipline the employees.

Patterson, Senate majority leader, was one of six senators to vote against the bill. He said that while it was not a practice he condones, he did not think the state should get involved in regulating it.

For lawyers, who are also often referred to as "ambulance chasers," there is no punishable sanction against this form of patient solicitation.

Harriet Turney, lawyer for the Arizona Bar Foundation, said there is a provision in the foundation's code of ethics that states a person's mental, physical and emotional state must not be diminished when deciding to employ a lawyer. She said that in her 10 years at the foundation, she had not seen one complaint about lawyers' aggressive recruitment tactics.

The bill passed the House 56-0 and the Senate 23-6. It will be placed on the Senate's final passage calendar this week before being transmitted to the governor's office.