Fully Integrating Medical Acupuncture Into Family Medicine

Interest is high among family physicians and patients in acupuncture. Many clinicians have been trained in medical acupuncture, but almost none fully incorporate acupuncture into daily clinical practice. The disconnect stems from limited reimbursement for acupuncture services as well as traditional acupuncture training that encourages encounters that last over 60 minutes. Most physicians either stop performing acupuncture after training or they only do acupuncture in a fee-for-service practice. For 4 years I have completely incorporated acupuncture into my family medicine clinic, scheduling 24 patients daily, seeing 20 daily while performing acupuncture on 5 patients per day. We’ve treated a maximum of 30 patients and 14 acupuncture patients in 1 day. In this model, patients are given equal treatment choices such as medications, referrals, injections, or acupuncture. If patients opt for acupuncture, it is performed at the same visit. Follow-up treatments are also performed