Category Archives: ANF

Acupuncture Organizations 2015 – State of the Profession

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The 40ish days between January 1st and the Lunar New Year are perfect for reviewing the past year and preparing for the next year. What worked, what didn’t? What direction will we go in when the days warm, the yang rises, and we spring forward?

There is much to consider when evaluating our practices and our profession. To understand how it all fits together we need to dive into the weeds. It’s going to take a few posts, but it will be shorter than the tax code!

Associations/Organizations/Guilds —

AAAOM (The American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine): Historically, our national professional association. And, historically may be all. The website shows no action items since 3/13/14, and no President’s blog post since 10/9/14. Is there anybody there? Is the AAAOM still alive?

ACAOM (The Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine: Graduation from ACAOM-accredited schools is a requirement in many states. 2015 ended with an announcement of a Degree Titles and Designation Project. This should be interesting – there are already graduates of and students in the existing range of programs and there are widely varying state rules. Better late than never? (Wouldn’t it be easier for the public if we were all Acupuncturists?)

ANF(Acupuncture Now Foundation): Finally, there is an international charitable organization dedicated to educating the public, other health care providers, and those who work in health care policy. For too long we’ve relied on piecemeal efforts to educate others.The ANF is just getting started and needs our support to provide a visible, accessible and positive message about who we are and what we do.

ASA(American Society of Acupuncturists): This non-profit collaboration of state associations launched in 2015. The ASA has potential, and challenges. One challenge – “six degrees of separation” between individual practitioners and the group. A planned website should help bridge the gap. Of greater concern – at the state level, the ASA defers to the preferences of the state association. If an ASA-member state association supports a law or regulation that serves its current members to the detriment of all other LAcs, too bad, so sad for the profession as a whole. There are good people involved with this group so I remain cautiously optimistic. I hope that, before too long, the member groups will see that a victory that disadvantages other Acupuncturists isn’t a win.

CCAOM (Council of College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine): The membership association for schools and colleges of AOM with ACAOM accredition or candidate status. They administer the NCCAOM required CNT course, and released an updated (available free!) CNT manual this month.

IHPC (Integrative Health Policy Consortium): The IHPC “advocates for an integrative healthcare system with equal access to the full range of health-oriented, person-centered, regulated healthcare professionals” and has been working to build enforcement of Section 2706 of the ACA to end insurer discrimination against classes of licensed health professionals working within their scope. I don’t know of any LAc that doesn’t support this group’s mission, so it is odd that many LAcs support legislation that would create this sort of discrimination.

NCASI (National Center for Acupuncture Safety and Integrity): One individual? Silent for many months now.

NCCAOM (National Commission for the Certification of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine): The NCCAOM “validates entry-level competency in the practice of AOM through professional certification.” Their vision is that AOM “provided by NCCAOM credentialed practitioners will be integral to healthcare and accessible to all members of the public.” They are powerful, organized, effective, and better funded than any other acupuncture group. They have had a major role in the path to licensure in many states. However, if you are not an NCCAOM diplomate, feel that the credentialing process is out of hand, and/or if you value traditions other than TCM, the NCCAOM is probably working against your interests.

NGAOM (The National Guild of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine): A professional medical society organized as a guild under the OPEIU, affiliated with the AFL-CIO. The NGAOM list of 13 VP’s includes the VP, Immediate Past President,Treasurer and one additional board member of the AAAOM and following in that tradition there is significant mystery around their membership and their decision-making process. They want the profession of acupuncture to be more like other health professions. Many LAcs affected by their work aren’t pleased with the consequences. You’ll learn more in upcoming posts.

POCA (The People’s Organization of Community Acupuncture): Mission — “to work cooperatively to increase accessibility to and availability of affordable group acupuncture treatments.” 708 Punk (Acupuncturist) members, 138 clinic memberships, and 1348 patient members. Minutes of meetings posted in their forums, 8 free CEU’s for practitioner members, loads of member support, and a school (POCA Tech) working towards ACAOM accreditation and currently accepting applications for the third cohort of students. This is a successful acupuncture organization.

State regulatory boards are not professional organizations or associations. Their mission is to protect the public, not promote licensees.

An exploration of acupuncture education, events in the states, legislation and regulation, and other items of interest, including more about these organizations, will be coming soon.

 

FPD/DAOM required, Schools, ANF, Dry Needling — and more Acupuncture News….

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New news:

Word is that the Nevada acupuncture board is poised to require an FPD (or is it a DAOM?) for licensure, even though citizens there are already under-served. I’m trying to get more information. Stay tuned for updates. State actions that limit our profession tend to stay under the radar until it is too late.

The acupuncture school landscape is changing. Last week brought news that Bob Duggan and Dianne Connelly will no longer be part of MUIH faculty or staff. For those who have been paying attention as The Traditional Acupuncture Institute morphed into MUIH, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. But it is sad. While TAI had its good and its bad, many who attended did so because of Bob and Dianne’s contributions. The announcement was quickly followed by a letter, in perfect TAI-speak, that, for the sake of the students, we shouldn’t get caught up in stories about this. As in, don’t even ponder what it is we aren’t telling you.

This week also included the news that NESA is merging with MCPHS, and ACTCM is merging with CIIS.  (Thanks, Integrator Blog.) Is the age of the stand-alone acupuncture school coming to an end?

Have you heard of The Acupuncture Now Foundation? They aren’t a membership organization, and they don’t want to get involved in acupuncture-politics. They just want to educate the public about our training, our skills, and the great results from our medicine. Please, support ANF! Marketing the medicine shouldn’t have to be an individual effort.

Older News:

Developments in dry needling, with the hope that we might learn from history:

  • Louisiana joined other states with an AG opinion that dry needling is within scope for PT’s and DC’s. Other AG opinions can be seen here.
  • Tennessee’s Governor signed Legislation formally adding dry needling to scope for PT’s, joining Utah and Arizona which saw similar legislation in 2014.
  • The Maryland Acupuncture Society came out in strength behind HB 979 and SB 0580 that would have set limits for dry needling by PT’s and DC’s. The bills went nowhere, perhaps a blessing in disguise as “success” would have opened a can of worms.  (The bills did not define dry needling, MAS support put the acupuncture community’s stamp of approval on a 200 hour standard for acupuncture training that had been previously unacceptable, and the wording opened the door for PT’s with 200 hours of training to argue that they were now, indeed, doing acupuncture.)

The AAAOM website has been updated with board bios and a revamped committee list, but still no answers for any of my sixteen questions for the AAAOM.

ACAOM responded to the petition in response to their Gainful Employment letter in the ACAOM Fall Newsletter.  The good news — they heard us. The bad news, they continue to believe that significant student debt is helpful for those who want to serve low-income communities.

There you have it, at least some of the news you aren’t seeing in Acupuncture Today.