Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.
Hi, my name is Michelle Gellis. I am an acupuncture physician and an author, and today I will be doing a presentation on my top 10 favorite facial acupuncture points, some of which will surprise you, and I would like to thank the American Acupuncture Council for giving me this opportunity. So I got the idea for today’s.
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Presentation when I was doing a book signing at the Pacific Symposium two weekends ago I gave out these little cards and on one side were my top 10 favorite facial acupuncture points. And on the other side were all of my upcoming classes and. Sold a lot. Sold and signed a lot of books, and inspired me for today’s presentation.
The first I. Acupuncture point that I use every time when I am treating one of my cosmetic acupuncture patients is large intestine four joining of the valleys, and this is a command point for the face, and it also allows the body to release any impurities that. Might exist because it is a large intestine point, so it helps to clear the face, farm acne oily skin, any kind of congestion.
And it also. Helps with all of the muscles in the face as well. Release tension and so it’s a really great point. It is one of my mandatory points when treating the face. And these are in no particular order, small intestine. Six. And that point is nourishing the old and it helps to the spirit of the point.
So I’m a classically trained Worly five element acupuncturist, so I’m always very interested in the spirit of the point. And the spirit of this point is it helps to nourish us in the face of old pain and empowers us to assimilate life’s lessons. From past traumas and on a more physical level, it helps.
If you think about where the small Intestine channel runs, it helps with sagging neck and chin area, right? ’cause the small intestine channel runs up the neck and the, through the side of the neck and then up. The side of the face, and I chose this image, so a lot of the images are from my book, but this particular image I chose because I find that a lot of people play small intestine six almost in the San Jiao channel, and I’m always reminding.
My students that small intestine six should really be right along the small intestine channel. My next favorite facial acupuncture point is gall gallbladder 18. And the way you find gallbladder 18 is you start right at the gallbladder channel and you follow it right. Straight back along the head until you come in line with due 20.
And that is where the point is. The name of the point is receiving spirit and. It is on the gall epi erotica, right on the occipital frontals, and it helps to, the nerve actually goes right along the channel. It helps to benefit the eyes, the forehead, and it has a direct action on the supraorbital nerve, and as I mentioned, the gall up erotica.
My next favorite facial acupuncture point is stomach four, receive nourishment, and this treats the mouth area so it can help with the lip lines, and it also helps to relax the DAO or the depressor anguli Aus, which could pull the corners of the mouth down. Small intestine 18, which is referred to sometimes as cheekbone, helps to treat the mouth area because the way that I needle it is I needle it straight up, as you can see in this picture, so it helps to treat the mouth area, lip lines, nasal labial, folds.
It also. Relaxes. So nasal labial folds go from the nose to the lips, so nasal labial. It relaxes the DAO also, and it helps to lift up the cheek area.
Helps to lift the eyebrows. And the way that I needle this is I go in line with the pupil. I go right underneath the eyebrow and I needle it straight up yin tongue. I I chose this picture this. Last picture. This was one of my students. This is from my book, as is the one before it. But this one I found online this morning.
I liked it because it showed not only the muscle, but so it shows the braceis muscle, which Yong is right. In the center of this ProsperUS muscle, but it also shows some of the wrinkles that people can get. That yin tongue helps to treat the bunny line that goes horizontally. And then these two lines here, which can come from frowning.
And Yong is right in the center. And the way I like to needle it is actually. Against the flow, not with the flow of energy. So I needle it up or I’ll needle it straight in if I’m using it as a motor point. And this helps to move the energy up as opposed to down. It helps to relax the mind and calm the mind and the spirit.
Leg three miles, which is stomach 36, helps to infuse the spirit of, the point is it helps to infuse the gifts of the earth within all of the meridians. It is a point on the sea of nourishment and it helps to tonify the Q and the blood of the entire body, and it fortifies the spleen, which holds everything up, and it also calms the spirit.
So if you are calm and your face is calm and relaxed, then you won’t have all of those contracted muscles in your face, which give you a lot of the expression lines and wrinkles that we get. Chen Men is another one of my mandatory points. I love this for cosmetic acupuncture. It helps to relax the face and it calms your patient.
Gallbladder 41. This image is a little blurry, but it was, an image that I thought was important because it really shows where gallbladder 41 is. A lot of people will put it on the wrong side of this, or even both of these tendons because they’ll follow the gallbladder channel. Then instead of hopping over this tendon, they stay on this side and the energy is really right up in this crevice right here.
So the name of the point is Foot Above Tears. It allows your patient to have an emotional release if they’re frustrated or angry, and it very strongly grounds your patient. So in my protocol, this. This is the first point that we put in the body. And it helps to spread stagnant liver chi in the, or chi rather in the liver, in the gallbladder channel.
So it helps again with anger and frustration and everything that’s going on below the neck is going to show up above the neck. So all that emotional stuff, frustration that we’re feeling is going to show up. Right here. So we wanna release that and it can also help to a lesser degree with some of the dark spots and other signs of liver cheese stagnation.
So those are my 10. Favorite acupuncture points on the face, and I want to again thank the American Acupuncture Council for giving me this opportunity to present to you today. If you would like more information on my classes, you can go to facial acupuncture classes.com. And if you’re watching this on your computer, there is a QR code take you right to the website and you can also get information about my book there as well.
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Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.
Hi there. My name is Michelle Grasek. I am a practicing acupuncturist, a marketing strategist, and the host of the Acupuncture Marketing School podcast. And today I’m looking forward to talking with you about three very simple search engine optimization tips that you can use to rank higher in a Google search.
And before we get started, I’d like to thank the American Acupuncture Council for the opportunity to be here with you today. Alright, let’s get into the slides.
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Okay, so before we begin, I just want to define search engine optimization or SEO. I know that many of you are already familiar with this, but as always, I like to make sure that we’re all on the same page. SEO is the process of making strategic updates to your website. With the goal of your website ranking higher in search engines, and because most people are using Google, I’m probably just going to refer to it as ranking higher in a Google search.
Okay? And I like to think of SEO as both art and a science. And today what we are going to focus on are three tips that are more art than science. Meaning you are not gonna be. Using any code on your website, you don’t need to go into the backend of your website. What we’re gonna do today is really about teaching Google what kind of patients to send you, and I think this is more of the art side of SEO and I do think it’s our responsibility as small business owners to use SEO to tell Google what our business is about.
What kind of patients we want it to send us, and really to help Google know when is our business the answer to a question that someone has typed into Google. And there are a lot of different SEO strategies that we can use to do that. But today I just wanted to show you my top three ways to. Help Google know when your business is the answer to a question.
Like when someone types in acupuncture for fertility near me and you’re a fertility specialist, that you want Google to have a little bell go off and say, I know the perfect website to show to this person for this search query. Okay, so the number one, first thing I would love for you to do is to add keywords to the heading in the above the fold section of your website.
So let’s talk about that before we go any further. So what does that mean? This is a screenshot of my clinic website, and this is the above the fold section. So above the fold simply means when someone lands on your website before they have scrolled. That’s it. That’s the above the fold, and you can see that I have two header images and I have a heading here, and I’ve kept it very simple.
Women’s health, cosmetic acupuncture, and pain management in Seneca Falls, New York. And of course we have our booking button. And really your goal here is to incorporate keywords. That are symptoms. So think about what is your specialty or what do you love to treat? Who do you want to treat more of? What are those symptoms or conditions you wanna treat more of?
And this is also about. Location keywords. So think about a combination of the symptoms or conditions you love to treat and make sure you’re including your location in this above the fold section. So an alternate, because this is very straightforward, it’s, it’s just a list. If you wanted to use a full sentence, I’ve seen people have success with that.
You might say, for example, helping women. In the Finger Lakes region, or maybe just the Finger Lakes, helping women in the Finger Lakes balance their hormones and reduce fine lines and wrinkles naturally with acupuncture. So then you’ve, you’ve kind of described your target market and your location and the symptoms that they are struggling with that you can help with.
Okay, so either way is fine, but ask yourself, how can I really incorporate symptom keywords and my location keyword into that above the fold. Headline on your website and this section on most websites. Let me go back one more time, is generally an H one heading is what it’s known as on the inside of your website, and this is helpful to know because Google.
Uh, puts a lot of weight on an H one heading for each page because the H one heading is like the most important heading. Think of when you learn to write an essay in maybe junior high. So you had your, like, your most important thing that you wanted to say, and then under that you had like subsections, and then you might have had sub subsections where you were getting like.
More and more nitty gritty and detailed to make your point. So the layout of a webpage is kind of similar. So you have your H one heading, your H two, your H three, et cetera. And so Google puts a lot of weight on an H one heading because it’s assuming that your H one heading, heading is explaining this is what this page is about.
And so on your homepage in the above the fold section, your H one heading. It’s really important to get it dialed in with your symptom keywords and your location. Okay, let’s talk about tip number two, which is to optimize the images on your website, and there are multiple ways that you can optimize images, but I just wanna focus on two today that are very simple.
So one is to fill in the alt tags for all of the images that are currently loaded into your website. And two is the next time you go to load an image onto your website. Let’s say you wrote a blog post and you’re gonna add an image with that post before you load the image. You want to change the file name for the image to include keywords, and then you upload it, and then you would also fill in the alt tag.
So what the heck am I talking about? Let me show you some screenshots. So first, let’s talk about changing file names of images. Before you load them onto your website. So this is a screenshot from the downloads section or folder on my website, on my, sorry, on my computer. And you can see that I was making multiple images for blog posts.
And I think the most important thing here is that you can see the name of each image below the image itself. So if I were to tap on this, it would. Be highlighted and then I could type in that space and I could change it. And you can see that I named the image with keywords related to the blog posts that I’m loading it.
So these are all about microneedling, and I am really explaining to Google. What is this blog post about? Okay, so this is another place where we are helping Google better understand our website by adding keywords into the file names of images before we load them onto our website. ’cause once you load it on your website, obviously you can’t change the file name.
So this is inside my website in the media section. So it might just be called photos on your website. It depends on what kind of website you have. I have WordPress, so the media bin in WordPress is where I load all of the images. Okay? And so you can see right here it’s got file name, and this one is for a blog post about neck pain.
So it says acupuncture, neck pain, how it works. Okay. You could also add your location or your business name. So I could have said acupuncture, neck pain, Seneca Falls, acupuncture. And what I really wanna emphasize here is you have to add a dash in between each word because Google is reading the file name and the dash acts as a space.
So if I just did acupuncture, neck pain with no dashes, all one word, that’s harder. Or it’s pretty hard for Google to read, right? So acupuncture, dash neck dash pain. Okay. Whenever you are renaming your images. That’s the structure that you want to use. Okay, so while we are in this section, I have this image pulled up.
It’s got its file name with the keywords in it. The alternative text right here is what I was talking about when I mentioned filling in the alt tag on your website. So alt tag is sometimes also called alt text, and it’s short for alternative text right here. What you wanna do is you want to describe the image and strategically add keywords.
Okay? And let’s talk about like what is the alt text? What the heck am I talking about? Alt text or alt tags are used by screen readers for the visually impaired to. To let them know like, oh, there’s an image here. Here’s what it looks like, or Here’s what it’s about. Okay. So it is important when you are filling in the alt text for your images that you don’t just like stuff them with location keywords like acupuncture in Auburn.
Skinny Atlas Waterloo, SCA Falls, et cetera, right? You, you do actually want to put some effort into describing the image, but then you can strategically also add keywords. So for example, this alt text right now, it says acupuncture for neck pain, how it works and what to expect. So I’m describing the text that is on top of this image, and you could also add onto that.
So perhaps you could make. The whole alt tag, say acupuncture for neck pain, how it works, and what to expect at Seneca Falls Acupuncture. Okay, so. The reason that I chose my business name I is that it has the location in it, and it’s good for SEO. If your business is Ageless Acupuncture, then I would also add in Rochester, New York, right?
So then you’ve got your business name added as a keyword and your location as a keyword. In addition to obviously the key words, acupuncture and neck pain. Okay, so you wanna go back through all the images on your website and fill in the alt text if it hasn’t been done already. And it you, if you have a web developer, they may have done this but it never hurts to check.
Okay. And then the last strategy that I wanna share with you today is writing blog posts. Now. Please don’t shoot the messenger. I know whenever I tell people to write blogs for their website, their response is always, that sounds time consuming. So I get it, and here’s why it is worth it. So every time you publish a new blog post on your website, it counts as an entirely new page on your website.
So let’s say that the average acupuncture website is five pages. So homepage about US services, frequently asked questions, and the contact page, and. Okay, so let’s say your website has five pages and your competitor down the street also has five pages, but you decide to write a blog post twice a month for a year.
So that’s 24 new pages on your website, and you are writing those blog posts about things that you really love to treat frequently. Ask questions. Let’s say that you love orthopedic acupuncture. You love treating athletes, you love treating runners, and. Baseball players, like those shoulder injuries that baseball players get are your favorite.
So those 24 blog posts are all about. The injuries that are common for runners and baseball players, and specifically how acupuncture is helping, what people can expect, answering their frequently asked questions, et cetera. So now you’ve got 24 new pages on your website that are full of keywords that your ideal patients are searching for, which brings your total number of pages on your website to 29, and your neighbor down the street didn’t.
Any blog posts, they haven’t added any new pages to their website. They’re still at five. So who do you think Google would prefer to send someone to, especially if they are an athlete? Your website is going to feel so much more relevant and just chock full of keywords. But your website is also being updated twice a month, which Google loves.
Google really prefers when websites are, freshened up, for lack of a better word, on a regular basis because it gives Google a lot of confidence that your business is relevant. It’s still active, you’re still in practice, you’re helping people, et cetera, so you have more pages with more keywords, and your website has been refreshed more often than your neighbor down the road.
For all those reasons, Google would prefer to display your website. Okay, really think about who do you want to treat more of? Who do you love treating? What are the frequently asked questions that you get all the time? So instead of answering questions that are broad, which you can, you can have blog posts like, how many treatments do I need for acupuncture?
Right? So just. Big picture, but I would also recommend answering specific questions about the things you love to treat. How many acupuncture treatments do I need for carpal tunnel? How many acupuncture treatments might I need for osteoarthritis of the knee? Okay. And think about, you know, your, your knee pain patients.
What are they asking you Think about? If you really love to treat runners we’ll use that example again. I feel like one question runners ask all the time is, can I keep running while I’m getting treatment or do I have to, are you gonna tell me to stop and take a break? ’cause runners hate to take a break.
Okay. So really, really think about your target market and what you love to treat, and what are the specific questions those people are asking you and answer them as blog posts. Okay. It makes a big difference. It helps Google choose you. It makes you look like an expert to your potential patients because you’ve got this body of knowledge that you have published on specific topics on your website.
Okay? So please don’t feel like you have to do all of these things at once. I, I like the strategy of choosing one thing to start with and then. Just taking the other two suggestions and putting them on your calendar, maybe like one month out and then another month out. It sort of helps you like remove that mental burden so that you can just focus on the task at hand.
You can focus on your patients, and then next month it will pop up in your calendar. Oh, I am supposed to be filling in the alt tags for my images on my website this month. Okay. And over time you will really see your. Google rank improve, and one thing to keep in mind is that it takes, I think, on average about three months for the changes to have the effect where now you.
Actually are ranking higher and you are seeing patients as a result. So just pick one thing to start with and get started with that today so that in three months you will really thank yourself for making this effort. So of course, if you have questions, you are more than welcome to. Send me an email, michelle@michelleGrasek.com.
I love talking about marketing. Clearly. I would love to talk about marketing with you. And I recently released a series of. Workshops about ranking higher on Google. So one is about this type of website, SEO strategies, and we get. Into the details of non-tech SEO strategies, other changes, like, just like these strategies that you can make to help your profile, sorry, to help your, uh, website rank higher, and then the sister.
The companion workshop to that one is how to optimize your Google Business profile, because between those two things, your website, search engine optimization, and your Google Business profile, you can have a significant impact on your Google rank. So if you’re interested, you can check those out at michellegrasek.com/google.
And before I go, one more time, I’d like to thank the American Acupuncture Council for the chance to be here with you and talk about these strategies today. Have a great day
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Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.
Hi, my name is Moshe Heller and I’m from Moshen Herbs. I want to thank the American Acupuncture Council for today’s show, and today I’m going to be speaking about supporting the immune system with Chinese medicine in winter. So can we start the slides? Good. This today’s topic will be how can we support the immune system with Chinese medicine in the winter months.
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And I wanted to just note that I, in my office I’ve been seeing a lot of flu patients and this year there’s actually a lot of stomach flu going around in winter, which is usually strange because usually this is a summer flu. But I have been seeing a lot of. Winter flus also.
Just wanted to re remind everybody that as practitioners we always should tell our patients that when they feel that a cold is coming on, when they’re feeling not right, that it is the best time to come for treatment. Rather than not, because a lot of patients might say, oh, it’s just a bit of a cold, so I don’t wanna come in.
Actually this is the best time to give treatment is when things are starting up. I also wanted to remind everybody that there is a link between our immune system, our neurological is system, and our gastrointestinal system. So this connection is what we work on in Chinese medicine in general.
So it’s really important to remember that when we’re talking about an immune system issue, we need to also look at the gastrointestinal system and. Talk about diet and our neurological system, meaning how can we prevent stress and and stay in a more calm state. Also wanted to remind everybody that this.
Idea comes from this concept that in our gastro in our digestive system in Chinese medicine, spleen and stomach are in charge of creating this are way chi are defense chi and our nutritive chi, which are really important to support our immune system. So when we’re looking at.
Supporting the immune system. These are things that we need to take into account. First before we go into treatment of the flu, I wanted to discuss prevention. Because prevention is always the best way to provide support rather than treating the disease itself. The most famous preventative or supporting the immune system formula in Chinese medicine is called Yan.
And Moshen herbs has a variation of that. Which is called shield, and it is, basically an enhanced Yan that helps to boost the immune system and prevent occurrence of colds and flus. Some classical practitioners might also use yin chaan and a low dose as a preventative formula, or the formula.
Shia Huang supporting the xang level. In order to prevent an invasion of a pathogenic influence. The shield is based on, as I said, ying sun. And I combine it with kuang to support or harmonize the ying and the way and therefore support the immune system. We also added a little bit of CIA and Chen p or what is called sometimes too urchin tongue. And that’s to transform dampness because dampness definitely hinders our ability to produce to hinders our immune system. So we wanna stay damp or phlegm free, so too cured. Or urchin tongue is the formula for that.
Finally we added Gogan tongue to harmonize the muscle layer and linger to support the immune system. It’s an adaptogenic m mushroom that really helps with the immune system. Here’s a look at how shield looks like and then. In terms of acupuncture, I, what would correlate to that is points like stomach 36 and CV six.
Supporting the qi. UB 12 is like the back shoe of wind and helps to support that and also UB 13 to support the lung. These are all really important points to use as preventative. And we of course we can use OX on stomach 36 to strengthen the overall chi. Avoiding phlegm producing foods is something that we should recommend to our patients and is also very important.
When we’re treating a pathogenic influence, we need to consider a lot of times where is the pathogen and how do we need to address it. But we can use points like large intestine four and triple burner five, and as well as g gov governing vessel 14 and gallbladder 20. And we can also treat by using cupping and of course.
Supporting the avoiding phlegm producing food not enough to stress that. In terms of formula selections, we have a variety of formulas. Yin chaan is for the start of a wind heat sung to yin in on the contrary use. Is when wind, heat is causing cough. So cough is a big sign for San Ang is when there is a deficiency and the wind cold concurrently and ling.
I usually think of it when we have a sore throat involved because it has herbs that relieve toxicity from the throat. Ing ng tongue is a, is also when cough is involved, but a little more. With some cold, damp in involvement. Defend is a new formula from Moshen herbs that combines yin, chaan and san together and creates.
This general formula for the beginning of the cold, and I added conning tongue here, or curing pill, which many years ago was called curing pill, but now we find it as conning tongue is the formula for a stomach flu. And it works fantastically and it comes in patent and you can find it in Chinese stores or many other distributors of Chinese.
Herbal formulas. This is concludes all the the information I wanted to give you for today, I will still, I wanna thank the American Acupuncture Council again for letting me present this. And I think it’s really important information. And if you want more information about supporting the immune system, please log into the website on the slide.
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Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors. Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.
Greetings, friends and colleagues. It’s Sam Collins, the coding and billing expert for acupuncture, the profession, of course, the American Acupuncture Council. Of course, I’ve got a little update coming up because obviously many of you have been contacting me, network members, and even others have contacted me.
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Say, Hey, Sam, what’s going on? I notice. That they’re not paying for exams and they’re also still recouping. We’re gonna talk a little bit about that, but we have to update from what we did in April. So let’s go to the slides. Let’s talk about what’s going on with recoupment and standard episode of care specific to acupuncturist and frankly non-physician providers.
So you’ll see here is a letter dated June 23rd from Tri West, and it says, we received the above claim. Let me bring it so I can pull it up. And it says. Try West. Receive the above-mentioned claim for your often notice I highlighted in yet it says evaluation and management procedure codes are not paid for this rendering provider specialty.
This is the latest thing we’re seeing. It appears, and I’ve seen it absolutely published way that to me would make it more, but it appears they have taken the ability for acupuncturists to be. Separate exams when it comes to the va. That of course is very frustrating because of course is an exam necessary thing.
Of course, I to determine the need for care you to determine the continuation of care. So what’s occurring, I think is maybe A-D-O-G-E cut here that they’re eliminating the payment for exams. That doesn’t mean you don’t need do one, they’re just not. For it. I think it’s probably we’re seeing the patient for the overall payments, but they’re not covering it.
We’ll see directly. Now the word that they did this in ap, what I’ve seen Pub in their newsletter is not quite clear enough for me. So I’m waiting to see the full publishing and episode of care, but I’m sure many of you have met. Now. Here’s gonna be the pushback if the exam after April when they published it.
They’re gonna be damn behind it because published, however. But then I want you all to think of standard episode of Care for Acup Occupy. Whenever you notice the standard episode of care, you’ll notice whether it’s going to be initial chronic follow-ups. They include e and M codes. You’ll see really, 9 9 0 2 to 2 0 5 9 9 2 1 to 2 1 5, and I bet probably your authorization as well.
So my argument’s gonna be, they’re saying they’re not gonna cut well if it’s after April, send an updated authorization’s not listed. I’m waiting to see that, then I would say, okay, but if it’s prior dispute’s gonna be, how did you send me an authorization? Clearly indicates exams and they’re, now, I’m not gonna pay for it now, it appears after April.
This is gonna true. But prior, it’s gonna be a pushback. Now that very frustrating. Of course it is. But I’m gonna ask you, is it worth it to still be part of it? I do, because think of the overall payment on a VA patient. You’re getting 12 visits to start, probably eight and eight to follow up. Assuming you’re doing three sets of acupuncture and a therapy or two, that’s maybe 110 to $150 of reimbursement.
Am I going to take away potentially, three to $4,000 a payment? Because they’re not gonna pay for a couple of exams. I prefer they do, but I’m gonna say I’m not gonna go that far. It’s something I think though we’re gonna be fighting. I shouldn’t say think. I know we’re gonna be fighting as a profession on a national level along with chiropractors and physical therapists, because this affects them too.
Because this goes against the equality provision. Equality says that if it’s within scope and you pay, other providers have to pay you because this is not Medicare. Now that’s gonna be a little bit of a fight, and that’s not gonna happen in short term. So when you get this, I do think we should dispute it.
I would certainly push back if it were pre-AP April, that they should, if it’s after April, not so much. Of course, if you’re a network member with me, reach out. We’ve got some letters for that as well. But I do wanna highlight also beyond that, just a couple of quick updates. Let’s talk about what’s happening and what’s gone on with doing.
Things with 9 7 0 3 9 or 1 3 9, and that’s of course what a lot of offices have used for cupping. Remember that was removed more than a year ago, so please do not use that code for cupping. It is not appropriate. Do not list it. They may pay it, but they’re gonna recoup it. So do not, if you’re gonna do cupping, use 9 7 0 1 6, which is a vaso pneumatic device.
It’s not a high payer. It’s about 11 to $15, but at least you are being paid for it. But again, do not use 9 7 0 3 9 and if they are recouping that, if it’s pre 2024. I would argue they can’t, but if it’s after 2024, they can. Now some people have argued. What about statute of limitations? Statute of limitations, I would argue certainly does apply.
Unfortunately, you know what I’ve realized or what I’ve learned, the statute of limitations for the VA is actually six years, so we’re not gonna win on that one as far as this goes. The other thing here is, and this has come up recently because obviously a lot of you are using paint indexes or similar.
To verify how the patient’s improving. I recently had an office, or actually a few that they were denied few further care because they weren’t showing at least a seven point difference on the general pain index. I really like the general pain index. It’s certainly the similar to the pain interference.
Make sure though, if you’re using it. If you’re doing it once a month, there’s gotta be at least a seven point change to be considered significant. Now, most of you, I hope, are getting bigger than seven point changes, frankly, but if you’re not realize it’s going to be a problem ’cause they’re gonna push back, which means you also have to focus in what if I’m using the pain scale?
That also has a limitation, which means it’s gotta be three points or more. Obviously if I say I’m a seven, I go to a six. That means I’m better, but it’s not considered significant. So if they start at seven, the next time you do it to really be considered significant, say on re-exam, it’s gotta be four.
So a three point difference, I would say. Then obviously those two factors are important. If you’re not getting at least seven or three, you better focus in on something about an activity, particularly a home or work activity that couldn’t do before. What they care about is the patient getting better.
Because remember, once they’re stabilized, they have to be on a continua care with flare up. So keep in mind, Acture works well. We need to demonstrate it. Show me on this general index pain scale or function, how much improvement there is. Now this brings me to, for some of you, and I’ve had this question a lot, is being part of the VA worth it?
Does it cost anything to join? No. Do the patients sometimes have some hassles getting authorization? Yes, that’s true. But when you’re paid. Let’s go over it. If you’re getting a standard episode of care for 12 and eight visits, just say the first two 20 visits in a year, considering just the treatment, that’s probably 2000 to $2,500 now, even with taking out exams.
Is that worth it to me? Absolutely. However, am I frustrated with the exam part not being paid? I. But at the same token, that’s not gonna stop me, but this is where if you’re not part of your state and national association, this is where we need to belong. ’cause this is where we need to push back because how are they treating us differently?
Now the downside is they are doing it to chiropractors. To physical therapists as well as massage therapists. So it’s not just you. But at the same token, I think it’s valid to say that it should be covered. ’cause how are you supposed to determine care without an exam because they’re doing this based on a Medicare rule?
Medicare only sets the fees for the va. It’s not the protocol. ’cause if that were true, they shouldn’t pay for acupuncture at all unless it were chronic low back pain. And under supervision, so we know that they’re just choosing and picking certain ones. So I think we’re gonna have a pretty good pushback.
But I do still, it is worth it if you’re thinking, I’m not so sure. We are doing next month in August. A whole seminar on the va, what to do, how to make it work for you, make sure you tune into that. Otherwise, I’m gonna say to everyone, we always wanna be resource. If you’re having issues, reach out to our Connect Acupuncture council.
The next specifically, we highlight updates right on our website. And if you’re a member, it allows you to have direct interaction with me via calls and zooms. And otherwise, until next time to our friend, be well.
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Okay, so today we’re talking about micro marketing, or you might’ve seen it called micro content, and the subheading here says 10 minutes a day or less.
Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.
Hi there. My name is Michelle Grasek. I am a practicing acupuncturist and the host of the Acupuncture Marketing School podcast, and today we are going to talk about micro marketing or micro content and how effective that can be. Before we dive in, I’d like to thank the American Acupuncture Council for the opportunity to be here with you.
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Alright, let’s get into the slides.
Okay, so today we’re talking about micro marketing, or you might’ve seen it called micro content, and the subheading here says 10 minutes a day or less. You don’t even have to do this daily. The reason that I really wanted to talk about this is that I have noticed, I’m sure you have noticed, everyone has noticed that lots of us are.
Very stressed out. Most people are at max capacity for their to-do list, and stress is simply very high lately. Seems to be across the board. So how can we continue getting visible for our practices consistently in a very low lift way? So that’s really what micro marketing is. And I found that even on a good day, on days where we’re not super stressed, where things in the world are calm and there’s nothing extraneous for us to worry about that we as acupuncturists, we often find it difficult to set aside time for marketing because we would just rather be treating patients.
So this is for you. Whatever the reason that you have a hard time setting aside time for marketing, this will be really useful for you. Okay? And really the big idea here is simply that consistency. Beats perfection or making things that are complex, right? If you are showing up regularly, even in tiny ways in the digital world, in your community, in real life, it aggregates over time, right?
It really. Matters and it makes a difference compared to not showing up at all. Okay? So this is really about those small actions having big results over time. They really build on each other and snowball. So that’s what makes it worth it, even though these actions are going to seem really pretty tiny.
So what is this? Micro marketing or again, sometimes it might be called micro content online. It is really. Simple brief marketing that you can create and then hit publish in less than 10 minutes. Let me skip ahead a slide here. Key features of micro content or micro marketing are that we are not overthinking it.
We are asking ourselves, what’s a frequently asked question I can answer. How can I answer that in three to five sentences? What format would work best for me today? Text, video, a Canva graphic, and what platform am I gonna choose to publish it on? And then just hit publish. Okay, so going with your gut for what you think your audience or your community needs to learn to help remove a barrier between them and making an appointment.
And then just putting that content out there and then it’s over with. It’s done. Okay. You can move on to better, better things for the rest of your day. So some examples of micro content or micromarketing is really anytime that you repurpose anything, I consider this a type of micromarketing because your workload in repurposing something is like 10% compared to the effort.
Required to create it the first time. So for example, if you had an Instagram post that did really well, maybe you take the caption and you repurpose it as an email newsletter, or you had a blog post and you repurpose it as an email newsletter. You can go in any direction with repurposing content. The idea is simply that you are not recreating the wheel.
You are copying and pasting as much as possible, and then just making small tweaks so that it makes sense for the new platform. Okay, so probably changing your call to action if you’re going from Instagram to an email newsletter or vice versa, but it’s really, it requires so little. Thought or decision making and no new content creation, which is the bulk of our effort that I consider this to be micro marketing.
You can also resend an email that you sent in years past. I do this all the time. Okay. I have a couple emails. That tend to do really well especially my knee pain for osteo osteoarthritis, knee pain email that I send to my list of current patients and potential patients. I have been in this location for six years and I believe I’ve sent that email three times, four times.
No one ever complains, oh, I remember this from last year. They don’t remember. And the number of people who saw it you, when you send it again, you’re probably gonna catch new people who never even saw it the first time. So I like this because you are literally just copying, you’re just duplicating a previous email that did well, right?
It got engagement. Hopefully you got some new patients on the schedule from that email, and that’s your motivation for sending it again. Okay, so whether it was a year ago or two years ago, I think that’s a sufficient amount of time to start resending emails. And that way you’re not writing them from scratch.
A really simple video to create if you are looking for a reel or a video for a reel for Facebook or Instagram, is to just do a quick walkthrough tour of your office. It’s nice because it’s pretty self-explanatory. You don’t have to put text or captions on it. Okay? You can also share that to your Google Business profile if it’s under 30 seconds.
And then really any update that you want to do to your Google Business profile, I consider powerful. But miniature, right? So maybe you add a new photo to your Google business profile, or you add an update. You know how you can add, it’s sometimes called a post and sometimes called an update. It’s like a micro blog.
You just share a picture and three or four sentences and then a link. Read more here or book here. Or maybe you just update the description of your Google business profile, or you update your services with keywords, right? So all of these are very small actions, less than 10 minutes that actually have a big impact.
And before we move on, I wanna explain I did a previous video about updating your Google business profile and why that matters and how to do that in ways that really get Google’s attention. But Google. Happy anytime you make an update to your profile, because this helps give Google confidence that your business is active.
Whenever you are posting fresh content on your Google business profile, it’s a strong signal to Google that it. It can have confidence in providing your business as the answer to someone’s search query. Okay? So don’t discount those tiny micro actions that update your Google business profile. Those count and they really matter.
Okay? Why does this work? I’m sure you can guess, but let’s go through these really briefly. This approach to marketing. Even if you’re just doing 10 minutes a week, if you are consistent, it helps put you in front of your audience over and over again. And I mentioned this earlier, but that is so much better than just not showing up at all and saying, oh, I don’t have.
Two hours set aside for my marketing this week. I can’t do a big marketing project. I’m not just gonna do anything instead, do something tiny and count it as a win because it is right. It helps you avoid burnout. So you can do this for the long term and it really does help keep you in front of your audience and in front of Google in terms of search engine optimization.
Okay. And of course it makes the social media algorithms happy when you publish anything, and that makes the algorithms show you to more people. Okay? You get more visibility and the more that you are showing up consistently, even if it’s only in these. Tiny ways each week. It builds trust with your audience because they know that they can visit your Instagram profile, for example, and learn something new or see an update from you.
Even if it’s just that you’re consistent with stories and you’re not putting anything on your Instagram grid, that can still work really well because some Instagram users still primarily. Just focus on Instagram stories. They’re not even looking at people’s grids. So you’re going to catch a subset of the population of your community, even if you are just posting something on an Instagram story each week.
Okay. And then of course, I just talked about how important Google Business profile updates are for search engine optimization and getting Google to pay attention to you and show you as. A search result. So I have two 10 minute formulas. You probably don’t need these formulas, but I just wanna put them out there as concepts for if you sit down at your desk and you’re saying, okay, I wanna do some kind of marketing, something micro, but I don’t know where to begin.
So there’s really two options for you. So the first is to just pick a frequently asked question that you get about your specialty. We’ll take cosmetic acupuncture for an example. That’s my specialty. How many treatments do I need? Or why do I need so many treatments? Or how does cosmetic acupuncture help build collagen?
Or how is it different from microneedling? Any of those would be great, right? And. Answer it in three to five sentences. So one paragraph, very brief. Again, we’re not overthinking it, we’re not writing a 3000 word blog post or a dissertation. This is helpful not just for us, but if we are burnt out, you.
We are having a hard time focusing and dialing in and doing deep work. Probably our patients and the people who are consuming our content are as well. So do them a favor and give them something bite-sized that they can quickly absorb and understand. That doesn’t require them to set aside time to focus on the content and learn an answer.
Okay, so quick wins are great for our audience as well. So then pick a platform where you’re gonna share this. Maybe it’s in your email newsletter. You’re gonna send the email newsletter answering that one question. Maybe you’re just gonna make it into a Facebook post, but hit publish and then you are done.
Okay? So that’s your first option, answer a frequently asked question. So your second option is simply. Repurposing or resharing content that you already created. So we discussed repurposing already where maybe you had a, an Instagram reel that did really well. So then you take the caption and you send that, for example, as an email newsletter.
So it’s the same content but a different platform, sour.
Actually sharing that same reel onto your Instagram account a second time. Okay? And if as long as you sent it a little while ago, it’s totally fine. Remember that not all of your audience saw it the first time. And most of my marketing clients, if they’re gonna do this resharing, they’re picking something that they shared like.
Five, six months or more in the past. So it’s been a while, right? It’s not something that they shared last week that they’re repurposing. It’s also important to, of course, to pick content that did well to begin with. Hopefully something that got good engagement, likes, comments, shares and saves are really important engagement metrics to look at on Instagram.
Click throughs to your website. And if at all possible, if you know that you had an Instagram reel or post or Facebook, if that’s your preference, that actually got new patients to sign up, then obviously, that’s the outcome we all want. That’s the one you wanna share again. Okay? So don’t be afraid to do that.
I know people are always worried. My audience is gonna notice if you shared it a couple months ago. They are not gonna notice, they’re not gonna say anything, especially if it’s six plus months ago. I think it’s a great choice. So I feel like that’s your best butt if you are truly crunched for time or just out of ideas, right?
Re-sharing. A post on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, et cetera, that you shared in the past is the lowest lift possible type of micro marketing that you can do. Okay? So those are your options. You can answer an FAQ and create a tiny piece of content and then just hit publish. Or you can reshare something, or you can repurpose something to a different platform.
Okay? So a few more tools to help you with this. Hopefully you are familiar with the graphic design website, Canva. I use the free version. It’s amazing. You can create templates that match your clinic’s branding, and you can just duplicate the template and you can change the words. And it’s very easy to use that to create carousel posts for Instagram, for example, or graphics for Facebook to make this process really simple so you are not making graphics from scratch every time.
And I really encourage the use of chat, GPT or any Gemini, any other AI that really. We’ll help you with brainstorming or outlining content, especially if you’re feeling stuck. If you’ve got a bit of brain fog or you just really wanna hammer it out and be done with it, ask chat, GPT for help. Okay, we’ll speed up your process and help you refine your final results.
So much compared to doing it by yourself. I really encourage it. Okay. And then of course, using any sort of social media scheduling platform. I like later. It is paid. I think it’s $16 a month for Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest. Twitter, the list goes on, but you can also just use the scheduling built Facebook and Instagram.
But this is nice because if you are resharing content that you already created. The meta platforms can make it really easy to just reshare in a couple of clicks. Okay, so Meta Business Suite and the content tab is really your friend here. Okay, so a couple more things. People, when I talk about these micro marketing approaches and.
They’re having a hard time and they don’t wanna do marketing. Here are some of the questions that come up. So one is, I don’t know what to post. So in that case, I recommend going through your FAQs that you get about your specialty, and just pick an FAQ and start there. It usually gets the ideas flowing pretty quickly and then use Chachi PT to help you if you need it.
If lots of people are like, I hate video, I don’t wanna create reels, no problem. Text works well on Instagram. The algorithm is actually still prioritizing. Carousels slightly over reels. So carousels, if you’re not familiar, are still images, but you publish multiple in a single Instagram post instead of just one static image.
So people have to swipe through. I’m sure you’ve seen these, if you have spent any time on Instagram, if you hate video, it’s totally fine. Use Canva to create graphics instead, or focus on a type of content that is mostly about writing, like writing an email newsletter or a very short blog post.
Okay? And then of course, if if people tell me they don’t have time, that is when I refer them to resharing, a post that they created in the past, because as I said earlier, it’s the shortest, the easiest. You sharing content again in just a few clicks. So a action item for you, or some homework, however you’d like to phrase it, would be to set a 10 minute timer, pick an F, a Q, answer it, choose your platform, and hit publish.
And then the little bonus thing that you can do is ask your audience to share it right? If you’re on Instagram, you could tell people you know in the comments. If you know someone who’s struggling with, we’ll say migraines, is what you talked about in the post. Tag them here or in your email newsletter.
I always recommend putting in the footer of your email newsletter. PS like post script. If you know anyone who is struggling with migraines, please forward this to them. We’re accepting new patients. It would be our honor to help your friends and your family feel better. Okay, so try to, if you have the extra brain cells, try to ask people to share it because that increases your reach without you having to do anything.
But if that is too much, too many extra steps, that’s okay too, because at least you published the thing. Okay. To summarize, micro content is really easy, really basic, but consistent and it snowballs over time. Okay? It gets you that visibility and engagement and builds trust with your audience over time.
So as always, thank you so much for being here. If you have questions, you are always welcome to send me an email, michelle@michelleGrasek.com. I love getting your marketing questions clearly. I love talking about marketing. I also have a low cost marketing membership. Called the Snack Size Marketing Club.
You are welcome to join me inside. It’s a monthly membership where we have suggestions for marketing to do each week. Keep it very simple. And before I go, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the American Acupuncture Council. One more time for the opportunity to be here with you today. Have a good one, and I’ll talk to you next time.
email newsletter.
I always recommend putting in the footer of your email newsletter. PS like post script. If you know anyone who is struggling with migraines, please forward this to them. We’re accepting new patients. It would be our honor to help your friends and your family feel better. Okay, so try to, if you have the extra brain cells, try to ask people to share it because that increases your reach without you having to do anything.
But if that is too much, too many extra steps, that’s okay too, because at least you published the thing. Okay. To summarize, micro content is really easy, really basic, but consistent and it snowballs over time. Okay? It gets you that visibility and engagement and builds trust with your audience over time.
So as always, thank you so much for being here. If you have questions, you are always welcome to send me an email, michelle@michelleGrasek.com. I love getting your marketing questions clearly. I love talking about marketing. I also have a low cost marketing membership. Called the Snack Size Marketing Club.
You are welcome to join me inside. It’s a monthly membership where we have suggestions for marketing to do each week. Keep it very simple. And before I go, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the American Acupuncture Council. One more time for the opportunity to be here with you today. Have a good one, and I’ll talk to you next time.
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