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One Simple SEO Strategy to Help Local Patients Find You

I’m sharing one very simple SEO strategy to help more local people find you on Google. And before we get into it, I would like to thank the American Acupuncture Council for the opportunity to be here with you today.

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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.

Well, I’m Michelle Grasek, acupuncturist marketing strategist and host of the Acupuncture Marketing School podcast, and today I’m sharing one very simple SEO strategy to help more local people find you on Google. And before we get into it, I would like to thank the American Acupuncture Council for the opportunity to be here with you today.

All right, so let’s get into the slides and talk about this strategy.

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So I know that most people already know what SEO is search engine optimization, but I wanna offer a, maybe a slightly different way of thinking about it or a new definition that is going to be useful for us today. So search engine optimization is really the art of getting your website and your business to rank higher in a Google search.

And I think it’s really important to note that we have the opportunity through. Search engine optimization to tell Google. When we are the answer to a question that someone has typed into the search, right? When our business is the answer to a search query, and it means that we also have the opportunity to tell Google what kind of patients to send us, right?

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And I think this is very important because so much that you can do with search engine optimization is free. And we really underestimate the impact that we can have. But we have to be willing to, I. Help Google help us, right? Because Google’s only using what’s already on our website and our Google business profile, for example, to understand our business.

And if it’s very thin in terms of content and we don’t have any keywords that reference the symptoms and the patients that we like to treat, how is Google supposed to know? When we are the right answer to a search query or how is Google supposed to know which sort of patients to send to us, to our website?

So really what we’re doing with search engine optimization is we are teaching Google when we are the answer to a question and helping it better understand our business. We are helping Google help us. Okay. So it’s a great opportunity that we have. And specifically when we’re talking about local SEO, there’s three things that have a huge impact.

So they are relevance, proximity, and prominence. So let’s talk about each of these briefly. So relevance is essentially how, how well does your business answer the question that someone put in to Google? How closely aligned is what you offer to the thing they are asking for. Okay. Are you a good fit for this search query, right?

Or your business? And proximity, of course is how Google determines when someone types in something like acupuncture near me. How Google determines whether you are within a reasonable range to show up for this person’s search, right? So if someone is searching acupuncture near me, and your clinic is an hour away.

Maybe Google’s going to decide that’s too far, right? There are other acupuncturists who are closer and it’s going to prioritize them towards the top of a search, right? And again, this is specific for near me searches, okay? Because Google is using the location of the user, like where is their cell phone, what are the coordinates when they’re typing in this question, and what is the address of your brick and mortar business and what is the distance between them?

Okay, so that’s proximity. And then prominence is really how authoritative, how engaged, how popular is your business, how much are people talking about your business? And this is both. In terms of online and offline, but Google is using signals like reviews of your business, links from other business websites that are local, that are near your clinic to your website.

Mentions of your business. Social media or elsewhere on the internet, that doesn’t necessarily have to be linked, although that’s always great, but maybe someone is talking about your business on Facebook. Maybe someone actually tags your business in a post on Facebook. Okay. Or Instagram. And Google’s paying attention all of these signals to help it understand like how well known, how established is your business.

Because all of this. All of these factors that contribute to prominence, build trust with Google, because really Google wants to make sure that any business that it recommends in the search results is actually active. And is a part of a community, right? It’s called the Worldwide Web for a reason.

Like it’s building a web of all of these threads that come back to your business and your website and your Google business profile. And it’s checking to see is there a local web of people who are referring to your business? And that just builds a lot of confidence and trust in Google and makes it more likely to rank your website.

Above some of your competitors who maybe have less prominent signals in the search results. Okay. And today what we are gonna focus on is just one very simple. Addition or change that you can make on your website that has a huge impact. And this is called location modifiers. And that’s just a fancy term for adding your location to specific places on your website.

Very strategic places that Google cares about to help Google better understand your business. And I wanna clarify, because what we’re doing is we’re going to add things like. Let me see if I can give you an, I’ll just give you an example. Instead of having a conditions page, like if you love treating migraine patients, maybe you have a big long page on your website that’s acupuncture for migraines, and you talk about what are migraines and who’s a good fit for acupuncture, for migraines, and what has been your experience what are the symptoms that you’re helping people with why should they pick your clinic, et cetera, et cetera.

At the top of that page, instead of just having the title be acupuncture for Migraines, adding a location modifier would be as simple as saying acupuncture for migraines in Scottsdale, Arizona, or maybe your town. Or your neighborhood. You could narrow it down a little. Okay. And I wanna clarify something.

So if we go back, my students, my marketing students ask me this all the time, and they are assuming that by adding our location keyword, they’re. Addressing the proximity piece of their local SEO when this is actually not the case. So what we’re doing when we are adding location keywords is we are improving the relevance of like helping Google better understand our business, who we are, what we do, who we serve, and like where we serve.

That it just counts under the relevance category because you can’t really impact proximity with keywords because Google knows your physical location address, and it also knows the physical location of the searcher. It knows the coordinates on their cell phone as they’re Googling something. And so if someone’s typing, acupuncture near me. It’s calculating that distance right and no amount of you adding other location keywords can change Google’s mind about your physical. Location and your address. Okay, so I hope that makes sense. So we’re not impacting proximity here. We’re impacting relevance because what if someone searches cosmetic acupuncture, Rochester, New York, right?

And you are in Rochester. Now you have the opportunity if you’re including Rochester as your keywords. You are telling Google, okay, I’m more relevant for this specific search query because my business is the answer to what this person put in. I do cosmetic acupuncture. I’m located in Rochester. I’m perfect.

I am the answer to the search query. Show me at the top of the search. Okay, so I hope that makes sense. So our focus here is going to be helping Google understand our business in this specific context based on location. Okay? And it’s super easy. These are very easy changes to make on your website.

So we’re gonna do two. Things. So the first is you are going to add these location modifiers to specific pages on your website. You are gonna update existing pages and blog posts, and then in the future, as you add more pages or blog posts, you always wanna remember to include your location. And then the second thing I’d like you to do is to add location modifiers to specific places on your Google business profile.

So let’s talk about your website first. So I’ll give you a bunch of examples. I mentioned the acupuncture for Migraines page. So I find that a lot of people do have these conditions pages on their website. So for example, if you wanted more pain management digestion in women’s health patients, like those are your favorite.

You would wanna have on your website, one page for each. Talking about, what kind of things can acupuncture help for in pain management? And who’s a good fit and what are the outcomes? What are the symptoms? Why is you, why should they pick your clinic? And I often find that sometimes people will just give that page the title, pain management, or maybe they’ll do.

Pain management, acupuncture. And all we’re doing in this case is just adding your location to that title, right? So Pain Management Acupuncture in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Okay. Because then think about. Each of those parts of that title is a key word, right? You have acupuncture, you have pain management, and you have Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

If we’re thinking about how your ideal person is searching for you, they’re probably searching for a combination of those things, okay? So this is really optimizing your website in a big way, and I just can’t emphasize this enough that it’s helping Google better understand your business and helping make you more relevant to your.

Ideal patient. We are just, we’re giving Google more information and we’re repeating, we’re gonna add your location in multiple places. We’re repeating it so that there’s consistency across your website, really emphasizing this. Okay, so some more examples would be migraine Acupuncture in Scottsdale, Arizona, acupuncture for Chronic Knee Pain in Rochester, New York.

You can also add your location. To service pages, so not just conditions, but also your service pages. So most people have a page that describes, what is acupuncture, and then another for what is cupping, what is Chinese herbal medicine, maybe? What is Chinese dietary therapy. So on those pages, you also want to add your location.

So for example, nutrition for hormone balance in Queens, New York. Okay.

So specifically, where are you at in your location? And I’m actually gonna go, I’m gonna share my screen and go on the backend of my website to show you what I’m talking about for some of these. So on your homepage above the fold, you wanna make sure your location is on there somewhere, and on your conditions pages and your service pages, you can see I’ve got it in parentheses here.

You want to add your location in either your SEO title or your H one header? You could do both. It depends on the layout of your page and we’ll talk about that, but one. Is great. Okay. One or the other. And you can add your location into the first paragraph of each of your conditions, pages, and service pages.

If you feel like you can add it naturally, if it’s a challenge and it doesn’t flow with the paragraph or make sense, that’s okay. It’s not as strong as having your location in your SEO title and your H one headers. And then you should also put your location in your meta description for your. Various pages.

So let’s talk about these. So what is above the fold? So this is a screenshot of my website. Above the fold is when you land on a new website, before you have scrolled at all, whatever you can see when you land there, that is considered above the fold. And this is very high value real estate because Google puts a lot of weight.

On whatever you place in this section and this section. So if you are able to add text on top of a, an image, that’s usually pretty common on most websites. You have a header image and then you can put text and a button on top of it. That’s usually an H one heading. So this is the H one heading on your homepage above the fold, Google is giving a lot of weight.

To this section. So you want to make sure that you are adding your location so you can see that I listed the conditions that myself and my associates like to treat. So things we specialize in, women’s health, cosmetic acupuncture, and pain management in Seneca Falls, New York. Okay, so now let me go behind the scenes of my website and I’m actually gonna let me back up a little bit.

So I have WordPress and if you have Wix or Weebly or Squarespace, then your website is probably going to look different, but hopefully you can still figure out where to find these things. It’s probably just the layout or the organization is a little bit different, but everything we’re gonna talk about should still exist in your website and you should be able to edit it.

So over here on the left, I’m gonna click on pages. And then I’m just gonna pick a page as an example. Let’s do the diverticulitis page. So this is the backend of this page. And you can see right here in this section it says, acupuncture for Diverticulitis Relief in Seneca Falls. So this is my SEO title.

This is the title of the page. Okay. Pretty straightforward. And then if we scroll down a little bit, there is a section here, it says preview. It is giving me a preview of if this page were to come up in a Google search result, this is what it would look like and you can modify it. And that’s what we wanna do.

So I’m gonna say edit snippet. Okay. And then you can see, I can change the, so this is the meta title, and then down here is the meta description. Okay. So if you recall from our last slide, I said that one of the places where you can put your location is in the meta description. So that’s down here. So let’s say that someone Googles, diverticulitis relief, Seneca Falls or Diverticulitis treatment, Seneca Falls or something like that. And in the search results, in the list of organic results, you would see this if it, if Google decided that my business would rank. Okay, so that’s. The description is right here. So that’s where people are seeing like, what is this page about?

And helping them decide. Do I wanna click through and continue reading? So in my description it says, learn how acupuncture for diverticulitis can help reduce pain, bloating, and digestive discomfort. Natural diverticulitis care in Seneca Falls, New York. Okay, and then you can see I also added Seneca Falls, New York in this meta title, which is this part right here.

So I think it’s ideal to have it in both places and this section where you get to edit your metadata. Is often included at the bottom of a page. So if you are creating a new page on your website, it’s probably, you have to scroll down a bit. And I’m using an SEO widget called Rank Math, but a lot of people have a widget that is called Yost, Y-O-A-S-T, and these are free, they have free versions, and that’s what I’m using.

So I don’t have all the features, but the most important thing is it is allowing me to edit this. Snippet so I can edit the metadata and add my location. So then I’m gonna say edit. I use Elementor as just like a very common design platform that fits into WordPress, but I wanna show you something. So I also mentioned adding your location to H one headings on your symptom and conditions pages.

So what. This is the page and this here at the top, if you recall. This is my SEO title. This is the title of the page. So if I scroll down, I’ve got all of this text that can be edited and. Right here it says, what is diverticulitis? And it’s probably pretty small. I don’t know if you can see this, but this is, it says heading one.

So that’s an H one level heading. And if you do the dropdown, there’s heading two, heading three, heading four, blah, blah, blah. So heading one is where you would want to add your location, if it makes sense. So on this particular page. I already have my location in my SEO title and I felt like it would be detrimental for the user experience for me to repeat this exact statement.

Acupuncture for Diverticulitis Relief in Seneca Falls again down here. So you’ll notice that in this H one heading, I don’t have Seneca Falls because. I decided that it’s already in the SEO title. It’s fine and it is important when you are adding. Keywords for SEO to always keep in mind that readability is really important.

You don’t just wanna stuff keywords everywhere so that it is awkward and cumbersome for a real human to read because you also want your page to be compelling for potential patients and to make sense to them and not be really redundant. That’s very important. And Google also cares about that, right?

So you can choose where you wanna put your your location in this case on your symptoms and conditions pages. And if you can fit it into both the SEO title and the H one heading, then that’s great. Okay, so let’s go back. I think I covered everything. Let’s see, above the fold, SEOH one meta descriptions.

Okay, so we’ll keep going. There’s only a few more things to share with you. And again, these are very simple. So I also want you to think about your blog content and going back in and editing your blog posts and adding your location to the title of some of your blog posts. So let me give you some examples how acupuncture helps with seasonal allergies in Portland.

What to expect at your first acupuncture visit in Denver. Acupuncture for runners recovering from the New York City Marathon. Okay? So each of those is helping improve your relevance by including your location keyword. Okay? And then when you’re writing blog posts in the future, you wanna try to keep that in mind, like, how can I incorporate my location into the title of this blog post?

And maybe mention it at least one time in the body of the blog post. And then the other thing I would love for you to do today, and this is again very straightforward and simple, is to add your location to two places on your Google business profile. So one is in your Google business description you wanna add.

Your service, probably acupuncture, and then your town or your city. So the same exact thing we’ve been doing, right? Like acupuncture for pain management, digestion, and women’s health in Seneca Falls, New York. You would wanna add that to your Google business description, and you can also add your description in your Google Business profile posts.

Sometimes they’re also called updates. So let me share my screen again. Just briefly, so here we have my Google Business profile for my practice, and if we scroll down.

This is the business description. Okay? So you’d wanna make sure that your location was included in there. And I think it’s a little confusing. I like to point it out because it doesn’t say business description, it just says from Seneca Falls Acupuncture. Okay? But that’s what this is where it says from your business, that’s the business description.

And then down here where I have these. They look like posts to me, but they are technically called updates. You when you are adding an update, you can add some text. I would just make sure that you are referencing your location for whatever kind of update you are adding. Okay, so I do have an example for you.

Whoops. Let’s go back here.

So let’s say that you wrote an update for your Google business profile about knee pain. You could add a header, so to speak, where you’re sharing like what this update is about, treating knee pain and running injuries in Tempe, Arizona, and then you could continue on with. The rest of your information that you’re sharing in that update.

Okay. But just making sure that you’ve got your location in there somewhere. This really helps to tie your website and your Google business profile together, among other things that also assist with that. But this is a really helpful one that can have a big impact on where you show up in the map pack and the organic search results.

And you wanna think of your website and your Google business profile. Like an ecosystem, they should reflect each other, right? So both of them should be helping Google better understand your business and your ideal patients so it knows who to send to you. So a couple of quick things that you can do, if you can check off everything that I’ve mentioned, or if you just wanna do a couple.

And have some quick wins. I would change the I would add your location on your homepage above the fold. I would add your location to any conditions pages that you have, and I would make sure you add it to your Google business description. Okay. So just a couple things for you to do very quickly. That will have a huge impact on.

Your Google rank. So thank you so much for being here. As always, if you have questions, feel free to send me an email, michelle@michelleGrasek.com. I do have a couple of workshops that are on these topics if you wanna dive deep. And you can visit michelle Grasek.com/google. And as always, I would like to say thank you so much to the American Acupuncture Council for the opportunity to be here and share this information with you today.

Have a great day.

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2026 Relative Value Units – Sam Collins

In 2026 for acupuncture, I’m pretty darn excited because of the changes to relative value units. Relative value units are set up each year to give the cost of a service compared to any other, and that value changes the amount of revenue because there’s a standard conversion they multiply by, and when that number goes up, you get an increase in revenue.

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Greetings, friends and colleagues. This is Samuel Collins, the coding and billing expert for acupuncture, the American Acupuncture Council, and maybe more importantly, the profession. And you, as I warned you last month, there is gonna be changes. And of course there are. Let’s go to the slides and talk about what is coming, or frankly, what is here for the new year.

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So this is applied by Medicare, the va. Workers’ comp, personal injury, and frankly, health insurance. Maybe not all health insurance. Let’s face it. If you’re dealing with a SH or some of these, they’re probably not using rvu. They’re just trying to set a fee. But the bottom line is we use RVU to help us convert.

So let’s talk about what has changed in 2026. Here’s a big list of it, and of course you’re gonna look, this has a little bit of everything. This is something you get in our seminars where we give you the whole detail and go through that. But I wanted you to at least see, what the RVU are for this year.

Where they have changed and in fact to see that better. Let’s really talk about for acupuncture, you’ll notice 9 7, 8 1 0 is now 1.44 conversion. That is literally a 4% increase. You’ll notice 9, 7, 8, 1 1. Now at 0.85 is a 7% increase, so therefore there’s been a nice change. Acupuncturists are really fortunate.

Do you know you’re the only profession that’s got this much of a raise in the last three years. You got about 8% two years ago, another 4% this year That’s doing good, but you only get an increase. If you increase the fee, think of it like owning a home. If your home increases in value 10% and you’re gonna go sell it, you’re not gonna sell it at the value it was before.

So I want everyone to start thinking, how do I use this? So let’s say by example this year, just with a 4% increase. That would mean if you’re charging $78, now I use $78 because that’s gonna be roughly the 4% increase based on a $70 if you will. And you can see here that 4% increase means if you’re charging 78 for the first set, additional sets are 46.

Wow. That’s a nice big difference. Think about that for a second. A VA patient, a Medicare patient. Now you’re looking at probably $170. Maybe not that high, 160 something per visit. That’s quite a bit more than it was. Notice the big jump up though for e and m codes, you’ll notice e and m codes here increased 4%.

They went from 3.37. To three point five, two. Big jump. Most of all of you are undervaluing. Now, you may look and go, but Sam, we had a decrease in the massage rate. Yeah. Body work did go down, but I want you to know the reason it went down. They kept everything else flat. Even though they raised rates on some codes or values, they increased the revenue value by 3.2.

So the conversion they have is 3.2 higher. So that’s a much bigger difference for acupuncture and e and m. And it’s about flat for the massage part. So for the most part, maybe some of those fees will stay the same. But if you’re not increasing your fees a bit, it’s gonna be a problem because every state uses a multiplier and here’s some.

Real prominent examples. Michigan, Florida, Indiana use 200% of Medicare. So you just go back, you just take this rate, 200%, you’re gonna go. Wow. Sam, are you saying 200% means 150? That’s what they would allow. Now, I’m not saying you should charge that much, let don’t get me wrong. I don’t necessarily say that, but would that be within reason?

Potentially. So notice in other states, like California, it’s 150%, or in other states you simply do a number 69, 49, realize the Medicare conversion is about $35. You can see all of these are well above that as a good rule of thumb. Probably 1.5 to two of your Medicare rate, though that may vary ’cause your practice may be dependent upon cash and how do you balance the cash discount.

What I’m highlighting though, is you better start to get online to make sure you’re not undervaluing network members with me, my platinum members. Please reach out. We need to get in a meeting in a Zoom and go through these in detail to know what’s good for your area. ’cause I will guarantee most are losing money.

And this doesn’t just include acupuncture, but exams and some therapies as well, we will do for non-members. I have a seminar coming up January 18th or 25th, east Coast, west Coast. Let’s go through this because the revenue lost by most acupuncturists by not understanding what something is worth is a tremendous crime to your practice.

If you’re billing someone 50 and they’re willing to pay you 75, you know what they’re gonna pay you. 50. Now, I’m not saying you have to charge 75, but shouldn’t it make sense that you should charge what the value is? Relative values bring you there. I’m hoping for all of you, you start to realize that you need to look at this as a business part and not just, it’s the same year after year.

Costs go up as a general rule. Fee should increase about 3% every year just based on cost of living. And sometimes if you haven’t increased it in five years. Maybe you need to do a little bit more. Now remember, this could be indifferent to your cash part of your practice, depending, particularly if you’re doing packages.

So realize you wanna start to really fortify your practice. We’re here to help because notice Medicare increased rates 3.26% just based on that, if they increased. The value by 4%, then increase the conversion by 3%. That’s a pretty big difference that you may not be aware of. And this is gonna be just off of standard Medicare rates, which by no means would anyone say that’s the highest.

So get in line. I hope that you come part to the seminar, particularly for members. Remember platinum members, it’s free for you. Just call in and sign up. Otherwise, everyone else would love to see. And I wanna make sure, is your practice thriving? I have an incentive for you. Your practice is important to us at the American Acupuncture Council.

If your practice is not increasing, we don’t have a business either because we support you. We wanna make sure you understand the business side and acupuncturists, you’re good at your acupuncture, but have you really looked at the business side, allow us to have a chance to help you, seminars our network.

Hope to see you all soon Until next month, however, take care.

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Incorporating Side-bending and Rotation in Treatment

So just to start off with let’s kinda look at the channel orientation and look at sort of a planer approach to the channels.

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Hi, my name is Brian Lau. I’m with the Sports Medicine Acupuncture Certification Program. I also do a lot of work with something called jji Movement Training, where I look at Sinu channel movement patterns. So we’re gonna be talking about that a little bit today. And I wanna first of all start by thanking the American Acupuncture Council for having me.

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So it’s always nice to come and talk about this type of stuff. This particular. Webinar will feature some exercises. You could use these exercises for patient exercises and I’ll give you some indications for that. But they’re also great exercises used for your own wellness program. Let’s go ahead and jump right into it.

We’ll go ahead and look at the slides.

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So just to start off with let’s kinda look at the channel orientation and look at sort of a planer approach to the channels. You have several channels that basically line up along the sagittal plane. If you had a sagittal plane going in the midline, the mid sagittal plane, it would go right in through the Remi and out through the do my, but if I were to move that channel over, I would start accessing things like the stomach channel, the spleen channel.

The lung channel, the large intestine channel, the kidney channel too on the abdomen, but most of the kidney channel would be on the back part of the body with the urinary bladder channel, the heart channel, and the small intestine channel. Those more line up on that sagittal plane in the back. If those channels primarily do flexion and extension type movements, a lot of Qigong patterns feature those channels quite a bit. A lot of ’em ebb and flow between those flexion and extension of the torso, stabilization of the spine, this growing and expanding and a whole bunch of movement patterns associated with that.

I’ve done some webinars on those movement patterns. Maybe in the future we’ll do a few more, but today I wanna bring the attention to the, the frontal plane alignment. So those plane, that plane would go through the body on the side, along the San Ciao channel and the gallbladder channel, and it would exit through the medial part of the thigh, along the liver channel, or the middle of the arm along the pericardium channel.

Those. Sinus of the channel, so to speak. They attach in a way that does primarily side bending type motions and rotational type motions. So let’s look at a little bit of anatomy with that and that’ll set us up for doing a few of the exercises. So here’s a kind of a representation of the gallbladder sinu channel.

You can see that these line up mostly along the lateral aspect of the body. Some of the structures, like the IT band go kind pretty much straight up and down. But other ones you might notice have a little bit more of a diagonal position. Maybe down and out like in the obliques, or you have lat the lats, which primarily just go straight up and down.

There’s a little bit of an angle to ’em. So these are aligned in such a way that they can do side bending, abduction, or, excuse me abduction type movements. So movements in the frontal plane. This is the representation of the liver sinew channel. Classically, it ends at the groin, but I take it up into this continuous myofascial plane through the iliacs, quadratus lumborum and SOAs.

So these structures, again, they kinda line up along that frontal plane. A frontal plane would exit out through this area on the thigh, and they do things like abduction, a deduction. But a lot of the sinus, like I’ve alluded to already. Do spiral around the body. So even though they can do side bending type motions, like side bending of the trunk, they can also do rotation, like the external obliques rotating the ribcage in a contralateral direction away, rotating it to the opposite side or the serous anterior, the pericardium sinu channel involves or includes the serous anterior.

But then it also kinda wraps around following that myofascial link into the rhomboids, it creates a sort of sling that helps rotate the shoulder girdle. We’re gonna look at a lot of shoulder girdle rotation aspects today. So that just gives you a little summary of the anatomy. So then what’s the benefits?

What’s the goal? What do we wanna accomplish by doing movements in this frontal plane or the transverse plane, side bending type motions or rotational type motions. First one is this gonna build Qi in the Shao yang and Dian channels? We’re gonna look at a quick video in just a moment that’ll show some examples of that.

It’s gonna balance the position of the shoulder girdle, rib cage, and pelvis. So we want to work with aligning those those three major centers of the body. The shoulder girdle, rib cage, particularly the lower rib cage. ’cause there’s a lot of movement potential in the lower rib cage and then the pelvic girdle.

If we move those, really what we’re doing, ’cause there’s a lot of sinus that connect those to the spine. So we’re basically mobilizing the spine. Things like the sacroiliac joint and the pelvis. And then if we’re moving those structures, we’re also mobilizing and massaging the internal organs. We’re working with these particular channels.

It’s the case that those are primarily gonna be mobilizing things like the liver, the pericardium, the San Jiao. And the gallbladder, but particularly the liver and the pericardium will be something that we look at. So let’s start with the first goal, basically the first benefit to build chi in the XO Young in the jo y channels.

That’d be gallbladder, San Jiao liver and pericardium channel. And let’s go to a short video and just look at these types of motions to give a kind of an example of what these movements look like.

All right. Let’s look at the second goal, which is the balance, the position of the shoulder girdle, rib cage, and pelvis. I’m gonna use a model, this tensity model. Some of you might have seen this type of model before. It’s a really good representation of the human body and the form of the human body. I think in the past people might have just looked at layers of things like a brick, bricks on top of bricks to like a wall or something to describe the alignment of the body.

One bone stacked on the next bone, which is stacked on the next bone, very much like a brick is stacked on the brick. Those are really more of a compression structure where the force goes through the wall and great for a building. Great for those types of things. It’s not a great representation for the body.

For instance, if you were to move that. Wall into an angle, the thing would come crumbling down. It needs to kinda have that stacked alignment. Our body’s more like this tensity structure where our bones, like these wooden dolls are floating in the sea of continuous tension, which is formed by our myo fascia.

And it’s the myo fascia that gives the form to the structure, so if I were to. Misalign it or shorten one of these wires, one of these elastic bands, it distorts the whole structure. Maybe the person comes in complaining of pain somewhere away from this problem, and as we release this or change the tone here, that kind of helps ign the whole structure.

So our body’s much more like this. So if you were to bring your attention to the bands along the lateral aspect, that would be a good representation of the Sinu channels. Of the gallbladder and San Ciao channel, for instance, and the tone of that has a nice ebb and flow between one side and the next.

You saw this with the movements that we were doing where one side shortens the other side shortens. There’s a nice ebb and flow if I were to bring the Dway Yin channels into it. There can be nice rotation between these structures too, but there’s a communication that happens. Between the, in this case the wooden Dow on top and the wooden dow on the bottom between say the shoulder girdle and the pelvis.

They’re gonna communicate with each other through this continuous tension network. So if we can work on getting movement in the shoulder girdle, that’s gonna help pull on the rib cage and move the rib cage, and it’s gonna pull on the pelvis and move the pelvis and vice versa. If I move the pelvis. It’s gonna communicate through this continuous tension network via the myo fascia.

So we’re gonna be educating and aligning the structures through these XO yang and DY channels. So it’s a nice model. We’re gonna look at some exercises in just a little bit. You can keep a sort of a visual of this nice tensity model ’cause it’s a really good model for understanding movement in the body.

So let’s go back to the presentation. So we’ll go to the third benefit and goal, which is to mobilize the spine, the sacroiliac joint, and the pelvis. You can look at this this kind of ribcage structure and the spine structure, and note that there’s a lot of. Coupled movement of rotation and side bending.

But what I really wanna consider is that the structures, the myofascial sinus that attach the shoulder girdle to the spine, thoracic spine in particular, if those are moving and mobilizing, that’s gonna pull on the spine, that’s gonna contribute to a nice, movement in the spine, it’s gonna, it’s gonna help that rotation and side bending of the spine.

Same thing with those structures like the serus anterior that attach the shoulder girdle to the rib cage. That’s gonna pull on the rib cage. That’s gonna help mobilize that thoraco lumbar junction region. And then there’s sinus that attach the pelvis to the spine. Quadratus lumborum. SOAs, the obliques.

These are all structures that would be part of the network of channels we’re looking at. Those are gonna help communicate movement from the pelvis into the spine. It’s very hard to picture movement of every spinal level when you’re doing a Qigong or a therapeutic exercise. So I kinda like to put my focus on the shoulder girdle, rib cage and pelvis and allow the sinus to pull on the spine and mobilize the spine through that network.

Image on the right shows the enate bone movements and things like walking, but there’s a lot of Qigong patterns that involve that sort of spiraling, contralateral, sort of torsional type movement through the pelvis to help normalize that movement in the denominate bones. And create good healthy movement in the sacroiliac joint.

So the exercises we’ll look at in just a moment will really feature a lot of these types of movements. So the final benefit then, and the final goal will be to mobilize and massage the internal organs. So the image on the left is showing the pericardium. You can take note that the pericardium has attachments onto the spine.

It has attachments on the rib cage, it has attachments on the sternum. So if I were to think about this tensity structure and that pericardium was sitting in the middle of this, attached to all of these structures, as they’re moving and stretching and pulling and turning, that’s gonna help pull on the pericardium.

So it’s gonna create a mobilization and a kind of a shearing force into the pericardium. Same thing with the liver and the image on the right. It has a movement in the frontal plane. So as I’m going into this side, bending type motion. Expanding and stretching one side and shortening one side that’s going to take the liver into a nice range of motion.

It also has a transverse plane motion. So there’s a rotational type forces are gonna pull on that liver and kind of help take it into a nice range of motion. So that’s what I wanna look at with these groups of exercises. I’m gonna take you through a couple exercises. You can follow along with ’em.

And like I said, these can be your own exercises you do for your own wellness program, but they do make really nice patient exercises. So let me go and get set up for that. We’re gonna be in a slight different position. I’m gonna be standing and I’ll walk you through two exercises that can be used for patients or for yourself.

So we’re gonna look at a therapeutic exercise for the San J Innu channel along the lateral aspect of the arm and up into the shoulder girdle. It’s paired pericardium channel on the medial aspect of the arm into the ribcage. From there, it actually wraps around the ribcage. Both of these channels influence rotation and side bending type motions.

So when you’re doing those rotation and side bendings, that helps mobilize the thoracic spine, the sinus pull on the thoracic spine, and that helps massage the internal contents of the thoracic cavity, particularly the pericardium organ. So let’s look at this exercise and I’m gonna do it mirror to you.

So what I call out will be opposite so you can follow along. So the right hand will be on top, fingers facing in the opposite directions. Turn to the left open, turn to the right and close. Turn to the left open, expand. Turn to the right close, compress. Turn to the left open. Turn to the right close. Turn to the left open.

One hand is higher than the other hand. That helps move the shoulder girdle on the ribcage Turn. They become level and they change. So it’s mobilizing the shoulder girdle on the rib cage. Turn open, expand, turn close, compress, turn open, expand, turn close, compress, turn open, expand one hand higher than the other.

They become level and they change. Turn, expand, turn, compress. Change directions. So left hand on top fingers facing to the opposite directions. Turn right, expand, turn left. Compress, turn right. Expand. Hands move away. Turn left. Compress the hands. Start coming together. Turn right, expand, turn left. Compress, turn right, expand.

Turn left. Compress. Turn right. Expand one hand higher than the other. Turn, the change comes around. Turn right one hand higher than the other. Turn. They change, turn, expand, turn, compress. So we’re massaging the rib cage thoracic spine pericardium organ. San Jiao organ, at least in the upper port, upper Jiao, and we’re creating mobility and fluid motion throughout that region.

Open, turn, expand,

open up the stance. We can do another exercise. This one starts to involve much more of the whole body, so including the liver channel. The gallbladder channel, so reach up. They still has that opposite opposing motions. So it’s working the sha yang and the joy in channels in rotation and side bending hands separate.

One arm pulls back, the other hand pushes out. Hands come together. Turn. One hand pulls back. The other one pushes out. Balance, reach, expand. Turn,

turn, reach across. Turn one arm pulls back. The other one pushes out. Turn. Change directions. Reach across. Pull the arm back. Push the arm out and change.

Pull the arm out. Push the arm out. Change.

Pull the arm back. Push the arm out. Turn.

Hope you enjoyed the exercises and you found those useful. Again, I wanna thank the American Acupuncture Council for having me on. It’s always a pleasure to be here and work with work with the American Acupuncture Council and with everybody who’s taking part in the webinar. I’ll see you guys next time.

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Year-End HIPAA Reality Check

So at the end of the year, you gotta plan, protect, prepare, and protect. But you can’t ignore these things…

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Hi everybody. I’m Julie McLaughlin from The Fearless Acupuncturist, and I’m here today on the behalf of the American Acupuncture Council, and we are so excited. We are going to talk about end of the year hipaa. What do you need to do before the end of the year to make sure you’re HIPAA compliant? I’ll show you some slides now.

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So at the end of the year, you gotta plan, protect, prepare, and protect. But you can’t ignore these things before December 31st. Don’t put it on your to-do list for next year. You have to do things this year to make sure you’re HIPAA compliant and you’re not getting behind, because God forbid you get audited, you can’t go backwards.

So again, I’m Julie McLaughlin, and this is my partner, Perry Barnhill, and we are part of. Fearless acupuncturists where we help acupuncturists maintain and make sure that they are HIPAA compliant. So why is December the danger zone for hipaa? Because HIPAA problems love the end of the year, right?

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Compliance gaps quietly hide all year long, and audits and investigators, when they come in, they’re looking backwards. They’re not looking what are you going to do in the future? They’re looking at what you did. So you have to make sure that this year 2025 is good and compliant and you’ve got everything up to date.

Your documentation gaps are going to show up when it’s too late. You can’t go and change those. So I want you to do this now. I know it’s the holidays, but. Just take some time with your staff and do this now, because today is a reality check. This is gonna be about 10 minutes. It’s gonna be a compliance wake up call.

Make sure that your practice actually gets caught up. I’m gonna tell you what regular leaders are expecting to see on paper. If you don’t write it down, if you don’t record it. You didn’t do it just like your notes, even though you saw the patient, you talked to the patient, you made a care plan, everything.

If you don’t write it down, it didn’t happen, right? And you have to review this every single year. So the number one deal breaker, the number one audit is the risk analysis, and this is the foundation. Everything else sits on this. So if you do nothing else that I tell you today, which don’t do that, but if you don’t, at least do your risk analysis because no current risk analysis, you’re done for it.

They’re gonna walk in the door, they’re gonna ask you for that. You don’t have it. That’s it. Then they’re gonna look for everything else you didn’t do. At least if you have this, they’re gonna say, okay, they’re making a temp. They’re working on this. It’s a work in progress, and they could give you a little slack.

So make sure you have your risk analysis and make sure that it’s a real one. It’s one that actually reflects what you’re doing. Don’t just make something up because they’re gonna know that, they’re gonna be like you said it’s this, but it’s not even there. So make sure you’re doing this, please. So policies that can hurt you instead of help you.

So if your policies, you read through ’em and they say one thing, but your staff does another, or you are doing another thing, or you’re not doing what it says in your policy, they’re gonna come after you. This is where it goes sideways, and this is where they try to. Trick you up and you don’t wanna do it.

And the third thing is, if your technology is doing a whole nother thing, you don’t have your technology safe from hackers and ransomware and we’re seeing this stuff, we’re seeing this stuff with some of the docs. So you gotta make sure you’re okay on this, please. In your training where good practices get burned, the most common assumption is my staff knows hipaa.

We go over all of this, we do this. But the reality is, if you don’t document the training didn’t happen. If you don’t have a audit log of what you’re auditing in your office, it didn’t happen. If you’re still using that old training you’ve used for decades, it’s ineffective because the HIPAA laws change and you gotta keep up with them.

Now, what about business associates? This is a liability that nobody sees coming. So we all know that you have to have a business associates agreement with anybody who has access to your patient’s. PHI, right? So it support cloud storage, EHR marketing platforms. What about even like people that you do business with, maybe people who are referrals for you, maybe lawyers.

Maybe you do some PI things or maybe you do some work comp things. What if you’re getting emails from these people that are hacked and you open it because you see it’s somebody you trust and and then you’re hacked. So you gotta really make sure you got all your business associates agreements in place and have it documented that you have them have a little list when they were, and then make sure that you get a new one every single year.

So make sure you have one for 2025, and then get ready to send them out. For 2026, security isn’t just an IT issue, right? HIPAA expects proof of all your administrative safeguards, your physical straight safeguards, and your technical safeguards. Make sure that you’re not leaving files face up with patient’s names on it where people can see.

All of those little things. Make sure you have passwords on your computer and screensavers that aren’t just open that people can see. You gotta go through and do all these little things because if you’re not, they’re gonna know just ’cause you have it written down in your manual, but you’re not doing it.

They’re gonna catch you. I know paperwork is boring, but really is the real protection. I cannot stress this enough. If it’s not documented, it didn’t happen, and it won’t defend you. Just if the insurance companies are paying you, but you don’t have notes and they ask for your notes, they’re gonna take that money back and plus they’re gonna find you.

So you don’t wanna have this happen. How practices get blindsided. We hear this all the time. We thought we were covered. We meant to update that. I didn’t know that counted. Does that sound like you? If it does, this is a little wake up call. You gotta get on this and we gotta do this. So your year end decision point, you got two paths forward, patch things up together and just hope for the best.

Hope no one comes in audit juice. No. No disgruntled employees or patients are reporting you. Or put a real system in place. Guess which one is gonna be the better idea? The real system in place, right? Because it actually works, right? You wanna have a structure, you wanna have current tools, you wanna have ongoing guidance.

You wanna keep up with the all the changes that are happening in HIPAA all the time. You wanna have your monthly HIPAA trainings, and if you haven’t done it yet, you have to do your annual HIPAA training. That is a must. If you have not done an annual HIPAA training this year, I want you to make sure you’re doing it.

And include all the new 2025 rules and laws that have gone into effect this year. Because if you use the same. Annual hip, a training that you used last year, you’re missing all the updates from 2025 and you don’t wanna do that. So don’t drag this into next year. It’s not gonna be good. So the next steps, if you’re like, oh my gosh, I don’t know where to start, or I’m really lost, I really need help, you’re not alone.

Reach out. We’re happy to help you. Info at better HIPAA blueprint. That’s Dr. Perry and i’s. Email address, reach out to us. We’ll help you if you wanna have a demo or you just have some questions that you wanna talk about, like what do I do about this or that. Use the QR code, use the link and schedule a demo with us and we’ll help you go through it, and we’ll help you show you how to really build a HIPAA compliant system.

Office to protect your office, your staff, you and your patients. So that’s it for today, and again, thank you for the American Acupuncture Council for having us here. We’ll see you next time.

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HIPAA – Top 3 Cybersecurity Threats in the Health Industry

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Why Your Acupuncturist Business Insurance Company Matters Most

Running an acupuncture clinic is a beautiful balance of healing and hustle—but one needle mishap, data breach, or unexpected storm can throw it all off. That’s why choosing the right acupuncturist business insurance company is crucial. Specialized insurers understand the world of sterile tools, patient privacy, and hands-on therapies in ways that generic providers lack.

Early in their practice, the acupuncturist experienced a claim with a generic provider that dragged on for months, leaving the clinic exposed and causing significant stress. Switching to a specialized insurer made all the difference—coverage became seamless, tailored, and worry-free. Indeed, customization is key.

Essential Coverages for Acupuncturists

The best policies protect against the risks acupuncture businesses face daily:

Malpractice liability: Covers treatment disputes, which can easily escalate into six-figure claims.
General liability: Protects against slips in treatment rooms or injuries unrelated to care.
Property protection: Shields needles, electro-stim units, and your clinic from theft, fire, or damage.
Cyber coverage: Safeguards patient records from breaches and HIPAA violations.
Income loss: Replaces revenue if your clinic is temporarily closed due to illness, weather, or other disruptions.

Benefits of Specialists Over Generic Options

Specialized acupuncturist insurers speak the former’s language:

Tailored bundles: Combine multiple coverages to save 20–30% compared to separate policies.
Quick claims processing: Payments arrive after a few weeks, keeping your clinic running smoothly.
Risk management resources: Free workshops on sterilization, documentation, and safety protocols.
Competitive pricing: Typically between $2K and 5K, annually for solo practitioners.
Expert guidance: Advice on state regulations, peer reviews, and best practices.

When choosing coverage, shop with at least three acupuncturist business insurance companies. Focus on policies with $1M+ per claim, reasonable deductibles, and strong customer reviews. Reassess your coverage annually to ensure it reflects the needs of your practice.

In today’s claim-heavy environment, the right insurance lets you focus on balancing qi, not balancing books. Specialized coverage gives peace of mind—because nothing should interrupt your patients’ journey to wellness.

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Are you looking for a reliable acupuncturist business insurance company? Look no further than the American Acupuncture Council. Call us today at(800) 838-0383 for inquiries.