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A Proprioceptive Acupuncture Technique at Extrapoint Chonggu

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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.

Hello, everyone. Thank you very much for attending our American Acupuncture Council webinar presentation. My name is Matt Callison. I am here with my esteem colleague, Brian Lau. I thank you. That. We’ve got a really fun topic today. It’s a proprioception at Extra Point Chonggu. Brian, can we go ahead and go to that first hetero slide?

Let’s get this slide.

So we’re going to be discussing is a needle technique for Extra Point, Chonggu, which is actually just one portion of a treatment for a upper cross syndrome posture. The upper cross syndrome posture, which we’re going to be elaborating here in just a little bit can lead to a multitude of different injuries.

And today is very short presentation. We’re gonna be. We’re going to be lecturing about how to actually needle this particular point and stimulate these lower cervical area that usually has a proprioceptive deficiency from this particular posture of a Ford, had an upper cross syndrome. So let’s go ahead and I think jump right into upper cross syndrome so we can discuss that.

So this term upper cross syndrome was coined by Vladimir Yonda close to 40 years ago. He is an osteopath in specializing in rehabilitative medicine, and he coined this term basically from looking at his patients that have a very unique type of posture that we actually see in our practice. And you as well, commonly, I would say every single.

It is looking at a forward head posture of a plumb line, increased thoracic kyphosis. So you can see that upper back really starting to curve without forward head. That’s going to lead to a number of different postural imbalances and agonist antagonist. So Bladimir, Yonda when he saw this, he actually coined this term is looking at it as a cross.

So you can see that the pectorals in purple here, the pectorals are going to be in a locked short position. Pulling on that humerus, making the humerus internally, rotate, collapsing the chest. Now going through that, you can see the next purple would be the neck extensors. Now those neck extensors are locked short, but they’re actually with through evolution, looking at portions of these neck, extension extensors are going to be locked short, and some of them will actually be locked long.

The longer part let’s say the lower cervical aspect of. That posture you’ll see that the neck extensors would be more in a lengthened position because of the forward head. Then the upper cervical region, the neck extensors actually be in a shortened position. So a little bit more on that with the next slide and just a little.

So that’s the purple aspect. Those are your locked short muscles. Now you’re locked long muscles will be, if you can see where the increase thoracic kyphosis would be your rhomboids, your middle trapezius, your lower trapezius, those muscles be very weak, allowing scapular, protraction, as well as that increased thoracic kyphosis.

Now, if we look on the Antar aspect of the body, you see the neck flexors. So it’s the deep neck flexors in particular that are going to be. Locked long or inhibited posture. If we look at the sternocleidomastoid, which will also be a neck flexor, that’d be more in a locked short position. So you have your general upper cross syndrome, but there’s also going to be just some variabilities within those muscle groups that will be locked long and locked.

So the point, the takeaway here is to look at as today’s presentation is that lower cervical region will be usually proprioceptive deficient in that forward head posture. It’s a lengthened area. So we’re going to use an acupuncture needle to try to reestablish some of that proprioception combined with an exercise to bring that forward, head back to neutral position.

Let’s look at a couple of models here. Let’s go to the next slide. There’ll be. So zeroing in on this upper cross syndrome or a common posture that lengthens the lower cervical region. So you can see how the head is really quite forward, but then it’s going to compress the tissues of the upper cervical region.

So if you could take two fingers and just put them right there at gallbladder 20, and once you have that, just simply start to look toward the ceiling. You might tilt the head back just a little bit. That’s called Qapital extension. So that’s different than cervical extension. Cervical extension is when you have all of the cervicals moving capital extension.

When you had your fingers there, gallbladder 20, you might have flipped those muscles. Just move just a little bit. When you’re looking up, that’s going to be looking at the upper neck extensors, especially the suboccipital triangle. And when those muscles get really quite taut that can lead to a number of different types of headaches, nerve and syndrome.

So the third occipital nerve, the greater occipital nerve, the suboccipital. Lots of different injuries that can occur from this particular posture. So you can see what the, both these models, if they got increased thoracic kyphosis, the head goes forward as a compensation for that forward head. The person’s just going to tilt their heads slightly upwards so they can see the horizon.

And that’s going to cause that capital extension and a number of different injuries. Now Brian’s going to go ahead and show a video that he did of himself to explain this a little bit more. Brian, do you want to take that away?

Yeah, sure. Videos just showing the relationship between the shoulder girdle movement, the scapular movement and the.

So there’s a ton of sinew channels that act on the position of the scapula and the movement of the scapula, not a ton, but there’s several. And we can go through them, but really, I just wanted to highlight in this video, how the spinal movement links with those scapular movements and the tie into what we’re seeing in these images here, before we go into the video, these models, as you see, have increased thoracic.

So their spine in that thoracic region and the upper, or excuse me, lower cervical region. The spine is stuck in flection. So we’re going to look at the relationship between the flection and extension components of the spine and how that relates to the scapular movement. Pretty short video. It’s an Instagram video.

It’s going to be on our Instagram channel or Instagram page. So it’s a minute long Instagram. Doesn’t give you a lot of time for these things, but it’s very brief. So let’s give it a look at. Okay there. We’re going to look at the relationship of the spine to the shoulder blade movement using this resistance band.

So as I go from protraction retraction, that movement likes to occur. As the spine comes out of flection, the cervical spine starts drying back and pact traction. That the spine will want to go into election retract. Buying comes out of flection, cervical spine throughout the back. Many people have a forward head posture.

So the spinal movements not coordinating with the entire movement of the body that sets them up for injury in the cervical spine angle, her girdle potential job problems, headaches. So they need to learn how to get rod, that surgical site back to encourage the entire.

all right. I’m gonna go back here for a second, a fun thing about filming things is you notice aspects that you wouldn’t notice otherwise. I had my mic here on the shirt. So when my head goes forward, of course, I go a little ways away from the. But I was acutely aware of how different my voice was and I was strained.

My voice became when I went into that forward head posture. So that was quite interesting, but yeah, just also noticing the the difference tension in the extensor suboccipital reason and how that sets you up for a whole host of different potential problems. But with that video you might notice the scapular movement and how much activity there, there occurs in the rhomboids lower trap.

It was mentioning those structures that are pulling the scapula back and retraction. So that can get us thinking about ways of treating this beyond just the technique we’re going to be highlighting. And I think Matt’s going to get into that on the next slide here. Okay. Okay. Thanks, Brian. That was good.

So just as an overview, what we’re looking at is just a portion of that upper cross syndrome, the increase thoracic kyphosis, which are going to, it’s going to have a lock long and weakened and. Rhomboids middle trapezius, lower trapezius. The head is going to be forward, which is going to be a lengthening of those lower cervical vertebra.

Then you have a shortening of the upper cervical tissues. So in this image, the head is neutral. Now, if we look at, if we can be able to take that head and just move it forward, we can start to see a little bit more of how. Lower cervical vertebrae going forward and how it would be great if there was a way for us to actually pull that lower segment of the cervical vertebra and all of the tissues that are highly appropriate, receptive your deep paraspinal muscles, your supraspinous ligament, your interspinous ligament, and encourage that to be able to come back while the person’s.

He is trying to strengthen the rhomboids, the lower trapezius, the middle trapezius, and add proprioception add sheet to that particular part of the. So I would say probably about 15 years ago. So I started playing around with this needle technique with the exercise and the combination is pretty profound.

And this is the reason why we wanted to share that with you today. Again, the takeaway here is this is one portion of the needle techniques or the points that we’d be using and the exercises that we’ll be using for upper cross syndrome. And Ford had an increased thoracic hypothesis, but it is a Pearl.

This is a big point. This is a great technique to be able to use. So it’s underneath the C6 vertebra. You’re inserting the needle through the skin, through the superficial fascia, the adipose tissue, and then the first tissue of resistance that you’ll feel would be the supraspinous ligament. Now, once you go through that, supraspinous ligament than the.

Long and wide interspinous ligament is going to be the next issue of resistance that you’ll feel with that acupuncture needle on most people, it’d be probably about, just about a one inch needle insertion, which is completely safe. You’re very far away from the spinal cord. Some patients when they’re laying on the table prone, it’s difficult to get to that C6 area because maybe they have a lot of tissue in the area or are just increase extension for some patients.

Some practitioners like to lower the head. To be able to open up that neck personally, as a patient. I don’t care for that very much. Having my head drop down a little bit. Doesn’t feel very good to me. Usually what I’ll do for patients is just to put a pillow underneath the chest and that’ll open up the neck.

So as a practitioner, just take your finger or two fingers and start feeling underneath that C6 vertebra separating the tissue so you can get an idea. On how to be able to put that needle up underneath the spinus process of C6 and get through those a formation, a four mentioned tissues. Once you get into that interspinous ligament, which is about, like I said, about an inch deep propagate Xi, and it may take a while actually for that patient to get to you because of the lack of appropriate.

Now, remember this is also going to be combined with other points for example, the wrong point motor point, the middle trapezius rotor point, the lower trapezius motor point you could use GB 20. There’s a number of different points that we can use depending on the patient’s case. So once you’re able to get an established Che at Extra Point Chonggu, then what we’ll do.

We’ll wrap the tissue around the needle by twisting the needle in one direction until the needle starts to get stuck. Once it’s stuck, then we’re gently going to start to pull that tissue back posterior where alongs. So we want that tissue to go back it’s lengthened because of the forward head position.

We want that tissue to go back at the same time as the. Doing an exercise, the prone and neck protraction exercise. So let’s go to the next slide there. Be

all right. So as that person is elongating that lower aspect of the cervical spine, bringing him back into extension, you’re pulling up with the needle so they can start to get an understanding of raising that lower cervical part of their body up toward the. They’re going to slowly just start to tuck their chin a little bit.

So that starts to get rid of some of that capital extension. And they set up this exercise by lowering and squeezing the scapulas together. Then engaging the middle trapezius, the rhomboids and the lower trapezius. So this is an exercise that you would do after all of the needles have been taken out with the exception of Extra Point, Chonggu.

Brian, is there anything that you wanted to add to that before we jump right into the video to show them. Yeah, you’ll you’ll see this a little bit on the video coming up that the tendency for the people who really need this technique in particular, the tendency, when people start to lift their chest by engaging the rhomboids middle lower traps they’re really tied into the idea, not even consciously, but just their body’s kind of stuck in it in a particular position to where they want to arch their neck.

And exaggerate the neck position that we’re trying to get them out of. It’s just something that’s very difficult for people who really need this technique. It’s difficult for them to find that movement where they both retract the scapula and bring the, draw the cervical spine back and lengthen that posterior portion of the cervical spine, especially the upper cervicals.

And now of course, the technique is designed to help with that, to help give them a signal and encourage them. But you have to look at the. And make sure that they’re not going further into capital extension, like trying to lift a lift up and going further into capital extension. So you have to coach them.

Now, the good news is the technique helps give a little cue and coach them at the same time, but sometimes verbally coaching is necessary. And you’ll see an example of that coming up. Yeah, that’s a really good point. A lot of people will go into that capital extension just because they’re used to doing that.

So thanks for saying that, Brian, by coaching the person, just to tuck their chin a little bit, that helps with it. Now, this technique also is useful. If you didn’t want to needle it by just pinching the tissue of Chong GU and lifting that. But it’s not as successful in my own opinion as actually using a stainless steel needle, going into the interspinous ligament propagating sheet.

To me, that’s the changing proprioception far better than just actually just lifting up that skin. Cool. All right. So let’s, and again, you’re in the blue channel, right? With the needle you’re in the do channel, you’re in the ligamentous tissue and you have a lot more sway on it. So you’re ready for the video.

Yes.

super supplies.

Squeeze caplets together, race together and relax everything. So bring these guys to be a backbone because you put this together

for me and agree this.

all right. That video is up on our YouTube channel by the way. So if I noticed the birds are a little aggressive, they’re mad in your background, they’re making some noise and it might not have heard anything. This sounds a little put out by that, but we do have that up on our YouTube channel. If you wanted to check that out sports medicine acupuncture, and you can do that.

Oh, sorry, Brian, are you finished? Can I go? Okay. This was a recording that we just did in New Jersey to finish the 2019 2022 smack program. It was three years because of the smack of sorry for him because of the COVID. So we just finished this. This was a module for neck, shoulder, and upper extremity. This is one of the techniques that we’re using now.

Remember, we’re also going to be needling the other points as well, and that helps with proprioception. So the person gets an idea on how to be able to lower and squeeze the scapulas together. So that’s great. That’s, this is a really wonderful technique to be able to use. We’re going to be teaching this class again here in San Diego and that’s coming up in June four days and that will be wrapping up completely of the 2022.

So also what we’re going to be teaching with this is a wonderful myofascial technique that Brian has introduced into the program that works extremely well for that particular posture and opens up the tissue. Great mile fast, mild fascial technique to use after all the needling. Brian do want to take it away.

Yeah, sure. So this is a seated technique. It’s a interactive between you and the patient. So first and foremost, you want the patients sitting in a position that is going to help facilitate change in the body. So you don’t want to just slouching though. I am starting a little slouch. So if you look at the picture, there’s three images, the one in the left most image once you have the person stacked on their sit bones, you’re going to take your Louis kind of knuckles.

I usually use just the flat kind of inner phalanx of two fingers. And you’re going to place that approximately I’m not being really exact on any location, really, whatever real estate you can get in that upper cervical spine. And you want to allow the patient to drop their chest and go into the Capitol extension.

Why am I doing that? I’m doing that so that the tissue shortens and I can get a good investment of the tissue. I can hook, I can engage the fascia. I can sink into the fascia and then you’re coaching the patient to start a lift. The sternum, descend the scapula by engaging the rhomboids lower. And drawing the cervical spine back.

So they’re a long gating, the the posterior part of the cervical region, especially those lower cervical structures that we’re trying to to engage. So they’re doing that while you’re descending and gliding through the tissue. So again, just initial setup, they drop the, they exaggerate the posture, so you can get a hook on the tissue.

And then as you’re drawing that tissue down, And elongating, they’re doing the movement, bringing the cervical spine back and opening the chest. So you’ll see that in the technique, these just give you the kind of rundown and the instructions for that. But let’s look at the video.

this technique is a combination between the manual work that you’re doing and also the movement of the patient. So you want to coach them with the movement, first of all, so have them drop the chest. And serve a call extension. So that’s going to be the starting position, starting them with bad posture.

And then they lift the chest and the length and the posterior cervical spine. So they start an extension with the chest dropped and then lift the sternum, like in the back of the neck, the chin comes in. Many times patients will have a difficult time doing that. When they go to lift the sternum, the loss of go more into extensions and some patients you have to coach them to the movement of this technique is really a big part of it to starting them.

And this position is it let’s come back to neutral. I’m going to gently place my fingers up towards the occiput. Just any area of the cervical spine that I have access to. I’m going to take them into the starting point. That will shorten the tissue. It allow me to get a purchase of the tissue and now it’s a pin and they start to come out of that and I’m stretching the tissue in the posterior cervical spine associated with urinary bladder.

Edgington.

and another pass maybe slightly lateral or slightly medial is again, place your fingers on the deck. Take them into the starting position. That allows me to get a hook last meeting the hold of the tissue, because it’s in a short position now, as I bring the tissue to known where they come out of that position, lifting the sternum, bringing the chin, like the need of the posterior part of the neck.

And I can take it all the way down through the upper part of the thoracic spine.

all right. So this is a supine version. I guess time to the seated extensor technique. So in this one, we had the patients who I’m limited the ability for them to be as involved in it, by dropping the chest, by lifting the head. So it takes away a little bit of the re-education aspect, but at the same time, there are next, a little bit more relaxed or they’re in a more neutral position that way.

I can still take them into capital extension with them in capital extension. I can sink into the tissue pretty close to the occiput. And as I bring the tissue down and start spreading downward, I can bring their neck back into a neutral position. So it’s a little more passive on the patient’s arm and the seated.

so it might be appropriate if there was currently neck pain, that they were having a harder time in the seated position, or if you just don’t have time to put them into a seated position or to use the time of their place,

the two movements. With the hand where you’re bringing them in to flection

lengthening the posterior part of the neck. The other one with the other hand, simultaneous where you’re spreading downward descending, the aging.

So a question about how many times, or how long would you do this technique? It’s a short technique, two passes, three passes. You don’t need to do it really more than three passes. If I were to doing multiple passes, I would probably move slightly lateral or slightly medial and cover the same region but tissue that’s slightly medial to the first pass or silent lateral to the first.

These are short techniques. There are supplement to the acupuncture. They don’t need to be something you spend a lot of time with something else, especially with the seated technique that might not be apparent is when I was following the person, as they went into a kind of exaggerated drop chest capital, a extension I’m not cramped.

I’m not digging my hand in as deep as I can. I’m really just following it’s more of a pivot point is you’re guiding them and following you’re not trying to force them into that position. So I’m not using a lot of pressure. By doing that, I get a hook on the tissue and the pressure really comes from when they start coming out of that position.

So you don’t need to use a whole, a strong ton of pressure with it. It’s a pretty gentle. There’s four, so they’ll feel it, but it’s not anything that you’re driving them in or trying to sorta mobilize the spine by doing it. So it’s more just following, Hey, Brian. I also saw that same question about the needle techniques.

So I think I’ll go ahead and address that as well. Do you want to go to the next slide? Just so people can see that information?

There we go. It’s just has our information that you do, but general, we have a lot of these videos up there. We also post them on our Instagram account and Facebook page. So all sports medicine acupuncture. If you searched for that, you’ll find it. And then our webpages there. So to address the question about how often are you using the Chung goo lifting technique?

Until the patient actually has a really good command of the movement of going into prone, neck retraction. Once they have that, then you can go ahead and stop now. So we addressed this needling technique as basically for that forward head, but you can also use. This 0.4 disc problems, cervical disc problems.

Also, if there’s going to be tenderness to just in that local area, there’s an Oscher point. You can also just go ahead and needle that without actually the lifting technique is for when you see that forward head posture. But again, this point could be used for a number of different types of local injuries.

Brian, is there anything else that you want to add before we had. Just as the bounce off what you said. Yeah. It’s used when they’re, when they have that forward head posture. It might also be used when you say use that neck extension exercise that we highlighted and the person’s really struggling and they can’t figure out how to coordinate that movement to bring that portion of the spine back.

It’s very difficult. And actually I was teaching, I teach some online Teagan classes that was covering this today because there are people that do that very thing when they go to open the chest. Arched the neck up and you try to coach them and they have a very difficult time finding that region.

So it’s appropriate aseptic technique. It gives that a pointer to this tissue bring this back, without using words, they can feel that the noodle kind of pulling that region is oh, that’s what you’re asking me to do. You’re asking me to bring that back. It’s just, it becomes very clear.

It’s like a spotlight on that region. So yeah. Just use it, use the technique, but you might use it when you’re seeing people struggle with particular instruction that.

The guys that wraps it all up. If you have any questions whatsoever for Brian or myself, or you’re interested in the program or any of our classes and information, there’s our contact information that was there in those notes. Thank you so much for attending. Really appreciate it. I remember next week also, Sam Collins is going to end up being here.

I thank you again for the American Acupuncture council. And we’ll see again next, next month. Yes. Thanks everyone. Thanks everybody.

What to do about Seasonal Allergies!

I would like to talk about seasonal allergies and some of you may have heard me talk about it, but I think it is because of this time of year, it is the time to talk about it and see how we can help people with this condition.

Click here to download the transcript. Click here to download the slides.

Hello, my name is Moshe Heller, and I would first like to think the American Acupuncture Council for having this, having me on this show. So great privilege and it’s a great show and helping us acupuncturists talk about different stuff. And I’m the first today I would like to talk about seasonal allergies and some of you may have heard me talk about it, but I think it is because of this time of year, it is the time to talk about it and see how we can help people with this condition.

So I will start with.

The weather’s getting warmer. The trees are starting to bloom and we are starting to feel that. Or our patients are starting to feel the effect of of this season. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve been getting a lot of calls to my office to try to help with these seasonal allergies.

So I wa I thought the best way to discuss how to help people with it is to bring a case. I’m going to talk about this young boy has, he was nine years old when he came to see me. And he’s been, he has been suffering from allergies for the past, about five years. So since he was about four and it’s interesting cause I’ve been seeing more and more children with allergies because I think it is actually a condition that is growing in numbers and we see more and more children and.

And adults would that matter who are suffering from allergies and we can see the numbers are growing. Even the CDC has published information about that too. So you are going to see more and more of these cases in your office to them. Sure. So he’s a nine year old. He is a chief complaint is nasal congestion, sneezing.

These are all and watery, itchy eyes. These are all very common symptoms of the seasonal allergies. Occasionally you will experience a lung congestion. So it goes down to his lung and he’ll have cough with a clear. And sometimes yellow sputum and this user does sputum is difficult for him to expect rate.

So it sounded it’s a sign of some congestion. The patient mother says that he’s more susceptible to catching colds than his peers. And family members. And she’s also reports that he’s allergy testing a reveal that he’s allergic to soy and tree nuts, which indicated to me, so other than the environmental allergies, he also has some food allergies.

He had a difficulty falling asleep and it was very hard for him to wake up because he would go to sleep late. And then only have six hours of sleep for a nine-year-old. As far as I’m concerned, this is not really a sufficient amount of hours. He also suffered from nasal clear nasal congestion.

He would have headaches when he was tired. And interestingly enough, he also had called sores one or two times per year. That cold sores for me are signs that there’s some kind of immune disorder. And also there’s a lingering pathogenic factor as involved with. He’s very sensitive to smells and his tends to have eczema behind the knees and elbows or in the elbow bends.

And the rash is usually red and itchy and raised in bumpy, but not Uzi. Eczema as usually another common disease that is Como co coincide with children who are very allergic. And also we see that with adults. He would have chest tightness and shortness of breath, especially when he’s exposed to cold.

So cold will make it the condition worse.

So his tongue is pale and puffy, which points towards some deficiency and slight center crack, and a red tip with particular in the upper jaw. And the coding is slightly thick and white meaning that there’s some More on the cold side and that the particular showing some underlying heat.

As we can see, it’s already pulling, pointing towards a complex. Condition, the pulse was slippery in the turn, but otherwise weak and his lymph LAN glands were congested and positive. This is something I do on a regular basis when I see children I palpated for the lymph glands under the jaw.

And along the anterior aspect of the SCM. So if they feel that if I feel that there are marble sized protrusions, then definitely that’s a positive lift Glen and a, usually those are the, when the lymph glands are positive, it points to. Maybe the condition involves a lingering pathogenic factors.

They have to see other factors also, but it’s a, quite a a strong, positive although he was nine, I was still looking at the finger vein and finger vein observation is something that we do a lot in pediatrics. It’s mostly done for children around to. Two years old, from from newborns to, to two or three afterwards traditionally it wasn’t used so much, but I’ve found it very helpful to look at that to look at the finger vein, even at older kids, because they’re radically.

At that age, it should not be president if it is it’s indicative of something. The finger Bain was very dark usually indicates heat. That was another indication that there was some underlying heat disorder in his case we, I observed his face and his cheeks seemed to be a bit red.

And the mother reports that they are a lot of times are red. And she said always red and there were also dark circles under the eyes and they were puffy. I have actually included a picture. You, it’s hard to see the redness in the cheeks and with the lighting. Case, but believe me, this area, this whole area, you could see it’s a little discard colored.

And you, and in real life, this was red. You could definitely see the dark area under his eye and you can absolutely see the puffiness of.

So I diagnose this, a guy with lingering passion, pathogenic factors and LPF with phlegm accumulation and underlying lung chief acuity. So there is definitely some lung T vacuity in the sense that that the tendency to get sick. And the lung congestion that happens as a result of that are all indicating that the lingering pathogenic factor included the large lymph gloat and the lymph gland and the history of having frequent colds and the phlegm accumulation could be seen in his tongue.

And and post. And the symptoms. I chose to use a combination of points, large intestine, 11 to help clear the heat, the underlying heat lung seven, to regulate the lung and strengthened the lung. Gallbladder 40 as a point to help clear the sinuses. It’s a point. Frequently when I see rhinitis or allergic rhinitis, a lot of times I would use that with moxa, especially if there’s pure cold in this case I didn’t, but frequently I will use marks on go about at 40, I use spleen nine to.

To the spleen transform dampness and and so screen nine is a point I use a lot when I see that the spleen needs to trends to help in the evacuation of damp and phlegm. And then I also have added liver five is I know that some of you may have not don’t remember, but Oliver five is the master point of plump.

It for me, that trans translation of that, or understanding of that is that liver five helps to work. The liver work through phlegm. No. We know that Fleming damp does hinder the flow of Liberty. And therefore I look at liver five as a point that helps deliver, move through phlegm and help the transformation and movement to a phlegm and resolution.

So I used that a lot of times when phlegm is involved live. I sent the, I sent him home with magnets and I do that frequently with children to support the treatment or continue the treatment to have a more significant effect. And so magnets are an amazing tool. Both were adults and kids.

I find them very helpful if you understand how they work. Then it’s really easy to use. And I’ve used it for, I use it a lot with children and also adults, as I said before, the advantage of the magnets is that you have. Of the polarity. You have the ability to either disperse or tonify. So depending on what magnets you use the magnets I use come with a dispersing aspects.

Facing the skin. So if I use, if I stick the magnet to buy lab, as I received it, then this would be a dispersing function on by Lao. If I flip it over, it will be tonifying therefore you be 13 and you be 20. I flip them over and help to To tonify both the lung and the spleen. And then I use this point below stomach 44.

It’s on the other side, on the the sole side of the foot behind opposite to stomach 44. That’s a point that’s used by Kiko Matsumoto for Allergies in general and specifically allergic rhinitis. The use of below stomach 44 the opposite side of stomach 44 with a magnet and dispersion is a great take home for kids and also adults as a.

I recommended them to avoid dairy and wheat. And the reason is of course we I do believe that they are very allergy forming foods. But also they are if you remember, they are the major phlegm producing foods in, in Chinese medicine dietary theory. Avoiding dairy and wheat will help with resolving damp and phlegm, as well as avoiding soy and nuts.

Those, we also see that he’s allergic to, and it will be good to avoid them until the body is able to ex you know we clear some of the heat and the phlegm, and there’ll be an improved. And we also talked a lot about trying to increase the sleep to at least seven hours so that he starts going back to trying to sleep early.

We talked about different things like either yoga moves or chicken moves to help him move into. Sleep. And I taught him some of those and that also helped him to fall asleep a little faster in. I gave him some herbs as part of the treatment. I combined shout child who tongue with a variation of Wu may one.

You may ask yourself why why did he use womanly one? We’ll talk about that in a few minutes, but I use that frequently for patients who are trying to address allergic or atopic tendencies the treatment was continued once a week. The acupuncture treatment for six treatments. And at that time, the patient reported.

He felt less congested and the skin rash was almost completely gone in general. His, he had quite a significant improvement. The treatment continued for another six treatment, but every two weeks and after which the patient skin has cleared completely. And at the time the patient was, I gave another formula.

I changed the formula. We took him off of the shell child who tongue and gave him every Haitian of Jade windscreen for continued treatment and every changing of the season, he comes for our a tune up to prevent the recurrence of the allergies. And this has been very successful.

I put here the formulas in ingredients. So you have it, I’m going to send or post the PDF version of these slides. So you can have. But this is a variation of G of a jar. The will, may one. And this is the shower chow Yukon tongue, the classical shower champ, shallow child who tongue I use in his case.

And this is the variation of the Jade windscreen. I added some Jean one and a Jaguar to the combo to support his condition. I wanted to just Talk a few minutes, a few seconds about why I chose we’ll may one as my formula. This comes from the studies that Dr. Lee did for the treatment of food allergies and also allergies in general.

And she based her and you can actually see, read this article if you have a moment. I think it’s very interesting. The reason she chose the idea behind it, it comes from diet. The concept that actually. The exposure to per Siddiq two parasites in patients who have allergies will reduce their allergies or in air in areas where parasites are very common allergies are much.

Present. She thought that an antiparasitic formula will create similar effects. And indeed she did some studies that were very favorable and therefore I decided to this formula and right here you’ll have the exact base formula, which he star, she based her. Her research on, she called this formula F a H F one.

And it is basically the classical rule may wand. And one, one more second about this in her original formula, he she. The form of the, she took she food, the foods and the shisha were eliminated in her test form nine. And I guess they had some issues with both of these herbs and as a, as part of the formula, I later on created a similar format and I’ll talk to her about that in a few minutes.

I added it back. I also wanted to mention that allergies always equals diets for me. I have never treated an allergy person without discussing whether it’s food, whatever, the allergic reaction where it’s allergic asthma or allergic eczema or any atopic disorder. When we suspect there’s an allergy at the root of your patient’s disorder always discussed die.

It’s really important to eliminate phlegm producing foods. It’s a live and just look at the diet and see if it is a contributing factor. I want to remind you that there is at day two logical factors for allergy there’s. One of them is actually. Pesticide and GMO foods that irritate the gut and cause what we call a leaky gut syndrome.

So that’s also something that we need to look at and And so it’s really important to make a real important discussion, to have a really important discussion about food. So I always start by asking them, what do they eat? How’s their schedule and what’s happening. And I asked them to keep a three week journal food, John journal of what they’re eating and how it is affecting them in here.

You have. The chart that I have them fill out for each day. So that keeps me, keeps the record and helps me see if there’s any patterns or any foods that are being consumed that could be contributing to the factor. And as I said here, pesticides and GMO can be irritating to the gut and cause me one of the causes for the allergy allergic reaction.

I also strongly believe that vaccinations can definitely contribute to To the allergic reaction and because of their effect on or how we see the effect on the body and the FA the fact that the pathogen that is being injected can actually become a latent and cause hyper activity in the immune system.

So I actually developed a formula called guard in my company that’s called motion herbs. And you’ll see the link at the end of the slideshow a formula that’s called guard, and it is a formula that you will Give to your patients before and about two weeks before and keep it on two weeks after each vaccination.

So it helps to eliminate that causative factor. I also, as I mentioned before, leaky gut syndrome is another theory that we have about why a children have or adults also in that case have allergies. As you can see here, there’s an irritation of the gut and the relationship of.

The gut to the immune system will or could create allergies. I one of the Part of another syndrome that we should probably discuss, just because we are talking about allergies is mass cell activation syndrome. I have a few slides in here that are, that talk a little bit about what is mass cell activation and also.

What are the diagnostic criteria is here? There’s a, an article because this is a really important factor when we talk about allergies. Here’s the definition of mass cell activation disorders and And one of the sentence I wanted to point out is dermatographic ism, which means that when you scratch the skin, it leaves a mark, a stronger than most people.

And that’s a really good sign to an indicator for muscle activation disorder. I am going to leave you. To read the signs and symptoms and this really going all over many Systems in our body affecting many systems around a body, but I wanted to also talk to you, just point you to this three herbs Chinese Arbel three Chinese herbs that are, that there were some lists research done on how they can affect.

The the reduce mass cell activation. So it’s called the three or formula Shuang one Leons and it stabilizes mass cells through the activation of the ma mitochondrial calcium on a uni. These are really, this is, I thought very interesting. And you’ll have, this is the summary of the Arctic of the, this article.

And and so it will, I think it’s really helpful to read about that and know that this syndrome actually exists and we can help it a lot with Chinese herbs and acupuncture Points that I consider to to work on when I when I see that there’s mass cell or for that matter allergic or a topic disorder.

So I always look at this kind of area of between large intestine, 10 and 11, and even towards the the triple burner channel this whole area is an area that regulates the immune system. And if it’s tender, I usually will need it needle it We also think of triple warmer, 16 is our lymph regulator because a lot of times we will have liver congestion as part of the syndrome.

So that’s really important to think about it. Do 12. Is helps with lung T regulation and we call it the thymus Glen reflex. And we know that the thymus gland is something is an, a Glen that deteriorates as we age, but is takes an important part in regulating the immune system at younger ages. So do 12 is a point.

I always pop it to see if there’s any sensitivity. I already mentioned behind stomach 44, which I used with case studies that we discussed and that I will. Popping along the spine to look for tight spots around, do two or three around L four L five L three and also around T 11, which is two six.

I also want to quickly mention this formula called Santiam 12. I used. Formula a lot for it’s a formula that is that is you can order it. It’s a patent and it is great for allergic rhinitis. And I look at these herbs as herbs that are very help with allergy symptoms.

So I always look at this formula and take herbs that pertain to the patient I’m working with to to reduce allergic reaction. I also created my own version of the of the variation of well may one. And I called it react with motion at motion herbs and react is a great support for children and adults who are having either food or environmental allergies.

And you have all the ingredients here. To to look at, and also I added this kind of idea of what are the indications and some of the specific dosage suggestion and cautions of this form. And a little bit of how I formed it. And finally additional support, like what I would do to help support it.

I just want to mention that core sit-in is an amazing supplement that you can Dispense to your patients to support to your treatment with seasonal allergies and allergies in general, it’s a natural bioflavonoid that downgrades, the histamine response. So it’s a sort of like a natural anti-histamine and it works really great.

Yeah. Strongly recommend that you explore that. And I use usually a product called de hissed by so the highest is a combination, of course, certain nettles. And I think bromelain is there too. It is fantastic. And if you suspect any gut Irritation or leaky gut. I always think of glutathione as a supplement to, to support my treat.

Thank you very much for listening. I hope that what I’ve talk to you about today, you can actually take to your clinic and use it to help many children or even adults in this transition time so that they can also enjoy the spring. And so thank you very much.

I also would, again, to thank the American Acupuncture Council for doing this show. It’s a, it’s really great. And hopefully you’ll join the continuing sessions of this this program. Thank you very much.

Business Insurance For Acupuncturists – A Beginner’s Guide

If you plan to put up an acupuncture clinic, business insurance for acupuncturists should be part of your must-haves list. It offers protection from liability or malpractice complaints – among other issues. However, it is worth noting that not all insurance packages are created equal; you have to carefully pick that one that fits the unique requirements of your business.

We recommend that you give time to sit down with your prospective insurance provider to discuss it thoroughly and come up with a package custom-designed for your requirement. In doing so, you avoid paying for other charges that might not be necessary.

As your primer, know that business insurance for acupuncturists can protect for the following:

Malpractice – coverage for needling, herbal remedies, moxa, and cupping; can expand to cover gua sha, bloodletting, or facial rejuvenation.
Premises liability – commonly called slip or trip and fall insurance. This endorsement covers potential risks of a guest on the premises alleging damage to their personal property or injury in the clinic area, such as slipping from a wet spot on the floor, tripping on a frayed rug, or fainting and falling off the treatment table.
Business personal property – can cover the insured for lost, stolen, or damaged business property, such as equipment.

Finding the right company

Searching for the right company that offers business insurance for acupuncturists can be tedious if you are new to the industry. But here are some insights you might find helpful as you list down your criteria for selection.

Industry experience – choose one with experience as an acupuncture insurance provider (it makes sense to choose one with decades of industry experience rather than a relatively new insurance provider)

Coverage – what are the inclusions of the package? Are the inclusions worth it relative to the price? How does one insurance package differ from that of another provider? (put them side by side and compare)

Insurance claim payout – how many insurance claims payouts have your prospective companies granted over the years? (you can ask for their annual data). In doing so, you will have an idea of whether or not they can deliver their promise.

Online looking for a reputable provider of business insurance for acupuncturists? Contact American Acupuncture Council today at (800) 838-0383.

Alchemical Chinese Medicine: Entering the Mystery

And in terms of saying that alchemy in Chinese medicine, Is this idea that we’re all perfect. We just don’t know it.

Click here to download the transcript.

Hello, and welcome to another edition of, To The Point. Very generously produced by the American Acupuncture. Today on this cold spring day, I am really excited to have a guest. Leta Herman is now chemical healer and a TCM teacher. She has a podcast called the Inspired Action and she’s an author of several books.

One is through the mystery. Also the energy of love, connecting your circle and the big little guash of book. And she’s just a delight. She has a training center for her El chemical work called the alchemy learning center. And we had a nice long discussion by phone about her work. And I think you’re really going to be interested.

Many of you are really going to be interested in this. We’re calling this entering the mystery of alchemy with Chinese medicine and Leta. Please, introduce yourself, say hello.

Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me, Virginia. And thank you to the American Acupuncture Council for having me here.

I’m thrilled to share this information with you in any way I can.

Yeah. Now we hear the word outcome. He tossed around. And some of us have studied it with Jeffrey UN for example. And it’s, and it really transcends just Taoism. And but how do you define alchemy or how are you looking at and trying to practice alchemy?

Yeah. So I think about, for me as a very generic word, and as there’s alchemy in the west as well as the east. So it’s a very broad word that generally means transformation, but because of the studies that I’m doing in alchemical Chinese medicine, I would like to define it a little bit more narrowly.

And in terms of saying that alchemy in Chinese medicine, Is this idea that we’re all perfect. We just don’t know it. And we need to like, as human beings, we’re here to evolve. We’re here to have experiences and we’re here to maybe even the Dallas would say fulfill a curriculum of this lifetime. And alchemy is about transformation in a big scale, on a big scale.

And it’s about how can we ask ourselves better questions about who we are? How can we take a journey along in our lives so that we can continuously evolve. And I think it’s equivalent somewhat to the Buddhist enlightenment idea where Buddhists are trying to achieve something in called enlightenment and in Daoism, we’re trying to achieve something that would be called a realized human being.

Jen Ren and and that’s a person that’s like a Sage or a wise person who basically is approaching life very differently than the average person. And there’s a long tradition in China of Chinese medicine, healers who have done this, like since they Meow and go home, but others as well, who were the ADA mortals, for example, that a group of people and there were others.

That group of alchemists who got together and they were working on their own evolution.

Yeah. And that’s solid bet.

So I, I know that we both not only studied with Jeffrey Ewen, we both studied plant spirit medicine. That’s a rather rare, esoteric subject. How do you bring that into this work? Or do you, or are you doing it more in a Dallas way? Is it a fusion of things?

It’s funny because I studied plant spirit medicine, which is truly a shamonic technique, even though it came out of the five element acupuncture tradition it basically incorporated the shamonic traditions with acupuncture and came up with a new and new kind of medicine.

From that perspective, of course, plant spirit medicine has been a native man medicine. Eons, but, so I studied that first and then I went on to study with Jeffrey Yuen and really delve deeper into the alchemy concepts. And then much later Jeffrey Yuen started teaching shamanism as well, which was just very interesting to me because I’ve obviously been attracted to the esoteric.

Day one. And I’ve always been working with people where I felt like I really wanted to get to the root of their problems. It’s like they, they didn’t feel well or they had emotional issues and I always wanted to find what is that root of the problem? What is that? Psychological, mental, emotional, spiritual root of those problems and both plant spirit medicine and alchemy are about that.

So I, I think that’s why I’ve been attracted to those different approaches.

Yeah. Yeah. I know the work that I did with plant spirit medicine was really, probably the most perfect. Lead transformative work that I did, despite a lot of meditation and other kind of traditions and practices.

And I had done shamonic work as well, but it was something It was from me. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak on certain issues and traumas that I have. And so I’m really, eager and curious to see how you work and whether it doesn’t matter whether or not you bring that into it, because I know from reading, your book, the which is the entering the, what is it?

Which one is it? The through the mystery gate that. You have had amazing results with patients, very transformative, not just getting rid of just physical pain, but getting at the root of very deep issues and Yeah, excited to, to learn more about that. And so actually, since we’re talking about treatments, how, what is your treatment like?

Okay. Okay. I have two kinds of treatments. One is a set of treatments that are just ours. Two-hour long treatments that people do over a very long period of time. It’s called the nine stages of alchemy. And that’s really about cultivating your passion in life, your full potential in life.

I say it, the goal is to really get you to fly in your life. So that’s all of the kind of forward-looking. This is where I’m headed work. But before we do that, There’s a lot of the past. And we say a lot of skeletons in our closet, a lot of things that haunt us from the past or that are hooked into us and won’t let go.

And so that’s where we do longer sessions. We do a, basically we devote a whole day to someone’s healing in that perspective and the most common one we do in that case, it’s the 13 ghost points and the 13th ghost points is about those hooks. They use the word ghost. Which it doesn’t mean you’re haunted by an entity.

It could just be you’re haunted by the past. It could be that, someone did something to you or you had an accident, or you just had a really difficult childhood or some kind of abuse scenario and those things they, you’re not free in your life because those are hooked into. And so we basically have a whole day where we do the 13 goes points.

It usually takes somewhere between four to six hours. And we just give someone the time and the space and the honoring of what they need. To let it go to really, truly let it go. And it is a transformational, like I’ve had

phenomenal and also your head is not into the mentality of oh, keeping on the clock and the next patient.

And then, you can really dive in very deeply with people. That’s beautiful.

Beautiful work. And people always say, aren’t you more tired after you do a long day like this? And I say, no, actually I’m less tired because I’m not switching eight times in the day changing, getting people in and out of the room, et cetera.

I’m just devoted to that person for the day.

Yeah. That’s one of the things I like about the facial rejuvenation acupuncture that I do because I try to make it a transformative treatment. But it’s I’m just with someone for a couple of hours. And you can just slow down and just you, I don’t know, you just, for me, I need that time to go more deeply with someone than, maybe some people could just go in and give them a look and change their life.

But yeah I think also for the patient, they feel more cared for and can really open up and relax into the. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Wonderful.

And the changes are pretty dramatic. Sometimes it’s right in the treatment room, where someone will say, oh my God, the monkey’s off my back.

Like I feel it. Or and they truly mean it. Like they come back in after that and they’re like, my life has completely changed. Sometimes someone’s voice will literally completely change. They might have a really high voice and suddenly. Lower voice or I’ve had people who that goes points are really interesting where I didn’t even know they smoked.

And that was an issue for them, but like a month or so later, they’re like, I don’t know why, but I just stopped smoking and I wasn’t even trying. And it was like maybe that’s because he were smoking. Because of this thing that basically were carrying around, it was latent in your body and now it’s gone and you don’t need that habit anymore.

You don’t need to smoke to deal with it, that pain.

Do you work with any prenatal trauma or.

Oh, absolutely. There’s another treatment that I do call the nine heart pains and then the nine heart pains treatment we begin with utmost source heart one, and that is supposed to be related to pre.

So in terms of just what you’re coming in with, what we’re basically a human being that’s incarnating. And that point is representing this, the start of a new ARN incarnation. And what’s all the baggage that might be there in the very beginning in utero. Wow.

Can you talk about the, so when somebody comes in how does the treatment.

I like to start with a little kind of ritual that I do with people, which is just talking and then having them pick a poem out of a book, having them pick a card out of a deck of cards, just to break the ice and get, even if I know them well, it’s just, they might be nervous. They might be anxious about getting there.

They just settle into something very simple. And then they get up on the table and. I take pulses and we, we do something really unusual in these treatments. We have an iPod or some kind of playlist with 20,000 songs on. And we shuffle it and they’re of all genres. And the idea is we’re trying to simulate how things were done in the ancient times where they had live musicians which I was really fortunate to see a similar type of event at mouth Shaun in China.

When we went there with Jeffrey Yuen, where these musicians were just playing. This live improvisational music and, there were symbols and all kinds of instruments. I don’t even know the names of, but that music was very. Emotional. It emoted things from people like people had tears running needed down their face.

And we’re here where, we don’t really know Chinese music as much. I have Chinese music on my playlist, but it’s more than that. It’s we need music that we can identify with. So I put every genre I could think of good, bad, whatever. You’re. Opinion is about music.

We have it all and we don’t segregate, we don’t we don’t try to limit it in any way. And so what we’re doing is just allowing the music to vibrationally. Move the treatment along. And the treatment itself is a vibrational technique. It’s about shaking up stuck patterns.

All alchemy is vibrational in the technique. And so it’s really about stimulating something that is been stuck and trying to really evoke more than just transformation. I like to say transmutation something really. Stronger than a slow evolutionary change.

And are you using needles or is it more energetic or.

am feeling I have, I, you can do needles or not needles. And I personally do not use needles for alchemy. I use my finger as a needle, and the idea is, I don’t want the separation of between me and the person of the needle. So energetically, my finger becomes the needle. So I just call it non needle needling.

And I always recommend my acupuncture students attempt to do some of these treatments with needles and without, and then they can choose how they want to do. It’s a little more challenging to do some of these treatments with needles, because some, in some of the treatments, the needles are retained and there are needles on the front and the back.

So it’s a logistical issue and it has been done. It’s not that it can’t be done, but there is an issue of, if you’re. Four to six hours on the table, the person’s going to have to go to the bathroom. What are you going to do about the knee? So there’s a lot of complexity that gets removed.

If you do the non needle technique,

and then you’re probably more apt to use your intention and transmit your G then just relying on the needles to do the.

Exactly. Exactly. And I really don’t recommend in general, I’ve had people who have gone to acupuncturists and receive the ghosts points and the, they did it like in a traditional stick, the needles and leave the room.

I don’t really ever recommend that because it’s such a powerful, emotional shift that it really needs to be. The, what I talked to people about is becoming an alchemical. Healer is really walking the walk with the client. So you have to be in the room. You have to be not only just not sticking the needles in and leaving the room, but each needle could take an hour to insert if that would be extreme, but it could because.

It’s takes that long for that person to allow the shift to happen. So you have to think of it in a totally different way. Becoming an alchemical healer is really different than just, how we’ve been taught Chinese medicine in general.

Now I understand even, even better why you’re doing it without needles.

Yeah. That makes sense. And can you talk a little bit more in detail about the nine stages of that? Yeah. So treatment approaches.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s actually my favorite work. The ghost points are very dramatic and they really shift people in huge way and it feels like a miracle often every day in my clinic, when I watch people walk out the door completely transformed.

That’s beautiful and I love that work, but that’s trying to get rid of something. That has been that package for them, that they that’s not about them, that they’re just trying to unload and. And then when you do the nine stages of alchemy, it’s like, how can you almost become more precious, like a metal that’s being polished and polished until it’s, beautiful.

And I feel we’re all a little bit tarnished and we need a lot of polishing. But in, there is something really precious. And so the nine stages of Alchemy’s. Just taking one step at a time. And I like to say that you can invent your own alchemy. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. I just like to say there’s some really.

A wise old ancient Chinese people that said, Hey, if you do it in this order, it works really well. So stage one is a treatment that we do. That’s just about E. It’s about creating more ease in your life. And so you do this treatment, maybe quite a number of times, you might do it over a whole year with someone where they’re just getting to a state of ease.

Now, imagine you might have someone who already has their. So you don’t need to do a lot in that stage. Maybe you do it once or twice or three times. And then it’s there’s not much happening here because you’re already there. You’ve done that work. So then you move on to the next stage. And the next stage is about I call it the best protections, no protection.

It’s about all the armor we wear and we don’t ever want that bad thing to happen again. And so we’re always on the lookout for it. We’re always checking for it and it’s tiring. It’s exhausting to live that way. And so what would happen if we removed that protection? Because we’re so good in ourselves and some of them throws a dart at you.

You just Dodge it. It’s not about you. It’s about them. They’re having a bad day and you can see that. And so once you start to step into stage two, you’re no longer protected. And then stage three is about all that prenatal stuff. It’s about the ancestors stuff. It’s about your past lives. So we need to unload that and then stage four, five, and six are where all the fun begins because you get to be, you get to be free of all that stuff and you literally start to shine.

You start to look like a light. And stage four is about being like a child. Stage five is about channeling and listening to the world and being like a wise person. And stage six is about really, truly flying in your life. Some of the immortals were purported to fly. And as late as in the 1950s people send, they saw them flying.

The movie, crouching tiger, hidden dragon, that’s not supposed to be just fictitious it’s supposed to be real. And what I like to say is I haven’t seen anyone levitate off my table yet, but I expect them to do it at some point, but they start to fly in their lives, and that’s really magical to see.

It’s yes, like taking off on a runway, it’s maybe some people have been taxing a long time, but they just haven’t been able to get liftoff. And a lot of this work is about that. And it’s about. Living what we call in our podcast, the inspired action podcast. We talk a lot about Wu Wei and stage six is about what is sometimes translated as non-action, but I like to call it inspired action.

How do you live that kind of spontaneity in your life, where you’re just free and easy and just, basically looking at the footsteps in front of you that are already there. And all you have to do is put your foot in there and put your foot in there and put your foot in there. You’re good to go.

So that’s on me.

I like that, flying in your life because that’s really more important than, developing some yoga city, some power You know it, I know I had a teacher who used to say, these people that spent all this time and energy, trying to levitate, even if it’s just a few inches or a foot off the ground.

And if they use that for, more of their inner development or for helping, world peace or something, how much more useful that would be. And yeah. I like that idea of people flying in their life. It doesn’t have to be something literal, and that it doesn’t even have to be that doesn’t even have to be the goal.

Any literal flying. It probably would just happen if somebody reached a certain stage. Yeah. Yeah.

Yes. That’s how I look at it. Exactly. And like I said I would love to see it literally, but I just like to see it as someone living their full potential and. It just really not held back by all the things that hold us back.

Yeah. And so what about 7, 8, 9.

Yeah interesting that you ask. So I decided a long time ago that I can only go as far as how far I’ve gone. And so I’m working on stage seven and I. I believe that in stage seven, you have to really go into the case. So to speak, you have to retreat from the world to do that level of work.

And it’s really about morphine. It’s really transforming in a big way. And in ancient times, in, for example, when I went to , there are caves, there were people. Basically living inside the cave for many months at a time, people bring them some water through a hole or maybe a little cracker too, but they’re basically in there until they figure their stuff out.

And so the idea is, I have. Been, I’m still very much in the world and I’m still like living a stage six life. And I want to keep working on my stage seven. And so therefore I don’t really want to take anyone else through stage seven, eight and nine. So seven is about this idea that you can morph.

You could completely transform yourself. Stage eight is that you can become like a ninja. You can become an. And stage nine is that if you become invisible, you need to learn how to reappear, if you want to. And there, there is a story of go hung when we went to gongs mountain where, he basically was surrounded by all his apprentices and he suddenly vanished and his clothes fell to in a pile on the ground.

And so he never came back that we, that I am aware. Or that I’ve been told. He obviously could still be a mortal walking this plane, but but the, his idea of immortality wasn’t necessarily that you had to come back that you just needed to transform into some other dimension.

Yeah. Also the, in India they say, if you reach a certain stage. Enlightenment or development that you have a choice, whether or not you come back to incarnate. And then

third

answer is you do come back to.

Yes. And that they not talked

about needs and desires and unfinished biz. Yeah.

Yeah. And we say that it’s stage nine is like being a Bodhi. PSAT’s a bodhisattva, you come back for the benefit of all and you’re coming back to help.

I’m going to bring you. Okay, here we go.

Okay. I’m back.

Yeah actually, maybe because of the tech issue, it’s a time to maybe it’s a sign to conclude this, but I would like to have you back and have you talk about the starry sky points and the nine heart pains and, there’s so much more we could talk about, unless there’s anything you want to say in conclusion,

Okay. All right. I was thinking that in terms of alchemy and just Al chemical healing in terms of like people who are doing acupuncture that are interested in delving into these concepts, it is it is like a a different roadmap for people it’s really about.

Am I interested in cultivating myself in terms of my own alchemy? Am I interested in becoming an alchemical healer because I want to transform as much as I want my clients to transform. And so I really look at this as like first, what about me? The practitioner? And I really came to that conclusion because in the beginning, I didn’t really think of it that way.

And it took me a while to understand a lot of that. Through my own cultivation. So as I did more and more work with this, I transformed much more quickly than I think I would have on my own. So I say to practitioners that every single time you do like a ghost point treatment or one of these treatments, the sign that you’re actually doing it well is that you transform as much as the client.

And I know that all of us have that experience of that big aha moment when the client shifts and then you shift as a result. But it’s way more apparent in alchemy. It’s really about not only the client, but the practitioner themselves. And I don’t mean that in a selfish way at all.

You’re not doing it so that you can transform but that’s one of the things that happens.

That’s, I always say that, people can memorize the classics and Chinese and what have you, but if they have. Cultivated themselves, spiritually and psycho spiritually. And if they haven’t learned to cultivate their cheek, then if there’s limitations on what you can do for people.

But if you’ve done those other things, it can transcend anything that you can find written, modern origin.

Yes. And so that’s why one of the things that we are doing is we have a website called the learning center and there’s an app as well called the alchemy learning center. And what we’re doing is we’re putting a lot of these.

Genes into a format that people can do on their own. So there’s things for both lay people and acupuncturists, and there’s this, just very simple cheek gung as an example of things that you can do to build your cheek, but there’s also, things about a deeper level of the five elements and how to understand ourselves on a very deep level, because if you’re doing alchemy, you really need.

Who is my authentic self, energetically, but also, in all different ways. And we talked a lot about the nine palaces, which we also, did a lot of teaching in that’s available there. And then we have something called the master outcome program. And that is for apprentices.

We have two programs now. We’ve. People coming from all over the world. So we have a virtual one and then we have an in-person option where you can come to the clinic and get supervision to do some of these treatments on your own. So when I did it, I had a teacher who really, mentored me.

Much many years later. Now I want to offer that to people as well, because it is work that is really hard to embark on your own.

Yeah. And it’s very hard to find an apprenticeship, people get out of school and they’re they’re not totally on their own, but th it’s not, there’s a reason that the traditional way was, a continued apprenticeship because that’s how you got.

And,

Yeah. Yeah. And I like to say, we go to a lot of CU classes, and we get a lot of download of information, and I just took this one piece and I did it in the clinic over and over again. And now 20 years later, it’s I want to share that with others so that it doesn’t take you as long as it took.

To figure this stuff out. So I think in practice it’s much different than in theory. And so the theory is great and it’s great to get CS is about theory, but we all know we have to somehow translate that into practice. And I always feel like my gift is that I used to be a tech writer before I went into Chinese medicine.

And so I like to take something super technical and then bring it into something that is. Easy for us to learn and utilize. And that’s, that is the same as tech writing. Really. That’s really what it’s about. It’s a health

teacher. Yeah.

Yeah. So that’s what I’m doing at the alchemy learning center. We have ongoing programs that start every every six months or so.

And. And so we will take a new group through starting in September. So yeah, so we, and we have a clinic in north Hampton, Massachusetts, that’s called the alchemy healing center. And if you want to actually get the supervision and you want to shadow, for example, a ghost point treatment, Just be able to observe me doing the work.

You can come to the alchemy healing center and do that as an apprenticeship program. So that’s what we’re offering in terms of that. So again, it’s just, it’s really about you can go and do it on your own. Everyone knows what the ghost points are there they’re online. Like anyone could use them, but, are you going to just stick the needles in and leave the room?

How

do you use them? I taught school for years and all the beautiful, poetic spiritual sounding names and qualities attributes that are, attributed to them. But it’s how, you’re actually. Helping people to achieve those kinds of results that you can’t do from just reading the description, really it has to be an alchemical process for the practitioner.

Absolutely. And just, when I started out, I actually started from more of the five element tradition. My, my mentor was a part of the Worsley school in England. And so I came at it from more doing internal devil’s IDs and EDS, internal dragons and external dragons treatments, and then started incorporating the ghost points as another option.

And then I started learning more and more. But going back to those days, I remember feeling terrified about doing my first IDs treatment. I imagine that a lot of people are scared in the beginning. We don’t really understand it. We don’t know what it’s about, so we need a lot of handholding

and also you’re entering into territory of somebody’s psyche that you really don’t know what to expect.

And. You shouldn’t just go charging in there. I know, you know that.

Absolutely. And I think that the important thing is to remember too, in the beginning interestingly, you don’t want to, you think you want to do the ghost points with the people that have the most obvious, disruptive. Things going on in their lives either mentally, emotionally, or spiritually.

But when you train, I’m really looking for people that are a little bit, Pretty doing pretty well in their lives. They’re not in deep crisis because we don’t want you to train with someone who’s, everything is just so tumultuous in their lives. That’s a very advanced, case.

And you don’t want someone new in that level of work quite quite at the beginning. So a lot of times when people take a class with me, they’re like, oh, I’m going to go do this. And I’m like, okay. But pick someone. Might just want to unload a little bit, if a few skeletons in their closet, not a whole closet full of skeletons that are going to bust out and remember it is a Pandora’s box for some people and there’s no closing that box back up once it opens.

And you have to think about these. There’s a lot of ethical issues to think about in terms of when you’re doing this level of work, how do you feel about it? What do you think is right and what is really going to be best for the client? So there’s a

lot of, we spoke about that on the phone. If somebody comes to you for.

10 of the muscular pain and you sense that it’s something deeper, I’m thinking of that story. You can tell them from the book. But do you have to ask permission or in, in your way of looking at things as opposed to just treating what you’re seeing if you see that there’s something much deeper than.

I use, I tell the story of my golfer person who came in and I said, this elbow pain you’re having go, this golfer’s elbow. I, is it possible? It’s emotionally based. And he kept saying no, there’s not. I, my life is great. There’s nothing wrong. I just have this pain. It’s my.

It’s my elbow. I just have this pain and he kept pointing to one of the coast points, large and test at 11. So we went round and we did a lot of treatments and we did . We did cupping. We did all kinds of points. He did everything you can imagine. And even he bless his heart. He came back, he kept coming back and no change, which is usually a good indicator that you need to do this work.

So finally I said to him, look, why don’t we just try. Emotional treatment. Let’s just try it. I didn’t talk to them about the ghost points, cause that’s a little odd and I knew it was a little bit out of his sort of frame of reference in the world, but I didn’t want to throw him off that way.

And honestly it’s just large intestine 11. It’s just another point. So I said, but this point, this point might really help you. And in fact, I think we should do a series of the points I did all of the ghost points with him and I said, let’s do a series of points and just see, okay.

We haven’t gotten it yet and you’re still covered. So let’s try this. So I did. And as soon as I got to large intestine 11, in which I did it over, you can do the points over many treatments if you want. So the day that I got to large intestine. He suddenly out of the blue started telling me about the fact that his secretary who was a longterm, many generational friend of the family embezzled like a hundred thousand dollars or something like that from him.

And it was. And that she was currently in court to be tried and go to jail about it. And so he said, yeah, I guess that is an emotional thing. And the next day he came back, the next day he came back, the pain was. So he became a convert obviously, and we did all of the stages of alchemy together.

And by the time he got to stage six, like all of the money concerns went by the wayside. He did, he got like a million dollar contract. He sold this house. Like all these things were happening and he just couldn’t believe it. It was just like, my lucky stars or something, yeah.

I think that, when you look at, how people are unaware of these things that are lurking deep down and they just think, oh, my wife’s good. My job’s good. They just don’t necessarily think about it, but sometimes there’s a lot there. And so do you have to say I’m doing this like really esoteric ghost point treatment?

No, you don’t want to lie to them. It’s more about what’s the language that they use. So I don’t try to shock people into thinking they’re doing like really weird stuff. I’m just like, what’s the language that helps them understand what you’re going to do. And in fact, there’s a ghost point called ghost market rent 24 and rent 24 is the fact that there’s a gift that you have that needs to get to only certain people in the world.

You don’t want it to go to the people who don’t. You only want it to go to the people who need it. What are the words that are going to best express in a way that person can receive the. If you say a bunch of things that are very alarming to the person who needs the gift, they’re going to be like no.

So you know how I look at it is how about, just using words that the person can take in and can help them understand that. Yes, I need Barden tested 11, I, it doesn’t need to be some big, scary thing. For some people, yeah. Some people come into my clinic and say, I’m feeling. I have a possession and I know it.

And then it’s okay, so we need to use that language. I need to be able to express to them. Yeah, we can work with possession. That’s okay. That’s what these treatments were traditionally for. So of course,

like a literal, energetic. Just that people get so obsessive that it becomes like a possession of thoughts, both versus an entity,

right?

Both. So the ghost points are wonderful for obsessed. In fact, that’s my favorite way to use them is there’s so many of us right now who need ghost points. Pretty much all of us. If you’ve been on this planet for like more than 20 years, it’s pretty likely that you’ve had some events in your life that are continue from the past.

So we that’s obsession. Like we can’t let that. And so that’s what the ghost points for really miraculous for. In addition, if you actually have an entity which is called a gateway to you, I just ghost a good way is a person that maybe died at some point and their spirit didn’t go home, to, to heaven or wherever you want to think.

And it stayed around and then potentially got into someone else. That is the Chinese medicine belief that can happen. And, whether you believe in it or not, doesn’t matter. The fact is that the person exhibits certain qualities that we would associate with that kind of possession.

And so we say there’s emotional possessions, and then there’s these entity possessions. And then we would do different treatments depending on which one you might have. And that’s really something that I. Developed through practice. For example, I still use Worsley’s IDs and EDS treatments, and I love them for particular cases.

And then I like the ghost points for other cases. And they’re all in the same realm, they’re all in this realm of, you’re not totally in charge of yourself, whether you’re obsessed or possessed, you’re not really running the show. And that’s the level of that.

I’ve heard alcoholism described as people especially for people whose personality changes when they drink that they, it’s almost there’s an entity that wants to experience that sensation of drinking or drunkenness.

And so they keep Eh, they exert this control over the person. It’s like somebody sitting on your shoulder and that you really have to, for some people with ringing problems, you have to, do, if it’s not a formal exorcism, somehow you have to deal with that energy.

Yeah. And for alcoholism or any kind of drug problem, I would say that there’s two parts to it.

There’s probably something that is like a ghost, again, it may just be. The drugs influence on you, but something taken over like a possession or an obsession. So there’s that. So I might do the ghost points, but then there’s more to it with any kind of addiction, because there’s often a reason why we got addicted.

And that is where I would do something called the nine heart pains. And the nine heart pains treatment is about loving yourself. And usually what’s behind an addiction is some kind of self-hatred or self-loathing or dissatisfaction with who you are. And so that treatment is usually also necessary and really important.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Cause that’s getting it, and maybe in this case it could be a two-pronged route to the cost, but yeah. To get to the root cause, no matter what.

And a lot of people when they’re just learning about alchemy, they don’t understand. So we can talk about the points.

The points are fascinating. They’re interesting. But to do that treatment, that loving yourself treatment, for example, which I call the nine heart pains treatment, you have to be so present. And so unprotected yourself, vulnerable yourself. So that person. I can now take that in and start to love themselves so that’s a deeper level of motivation.

Like we got through that. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh that’s great. I want to thank you so much. I know, taking time out of your day for this and do it with hard energy and humility. So I’m looking forward, maybe we can do this again in June and. Looking forward to doing more things with you, so fantastic.

Yeah. Anyway, thank you very much everybody. Next week. It’s Matt Callison and Brian Lau talking about they have great things. But we will see you soon and thanks again, the American Acupuncture Council and for all you listening. And I hope you’ll look into this because I think it’s going to make you a better practitioner and a better person, no matter what you’re doing.

So I’m signing out Virginia Doran of luminousbeauty.com.

9 Growth Strategies To Build A Referral Based Practice

Click here to download the transcript.

Hi there, Jeffrey Grossman here. And I’m thrilled that you took the time to join me here today. Today, I’m going to talk about nine growth strategies to build a referral based practice. So thank you again, the American Acupuncture Council for inviting me back for yet another installment on business and marketing and how to grow your practice on a Facebook live.

I’ll be talking about the K L T factor and how it’s going to be key for the longevity of your practice. And I’m going to talk about the main hub for your practice and how to maximize its usefulness. . Excuse me to help land qualified new patients into your practice. And I’m going to share nine different strategies that can help you build a referral based practice.

So my intention is to lay the groundwork for long-term growth, and I want to help you plant the seeds, not just for now, but for the long haul, not something that’s a one hit wonder. I want to really stress to you. The fact that marketing takes time, all marketing is about building relationships and planting seeds.

It’s a myth to assume that a referral will occur right away. So keep that in mind things take time. You won’t see the results overnight and. If you’re just starting, or if you have a small practice, keep in mind too, that you may not get the same results as another practitioner who has a larger practice that also gives them a larger referral base.

Okay. So I just want to say that your referral volume is proportionate to your referral network and referral based marketing is just one piece of the marketing puzzle. Because there are many aspects that make up a solid and quality marketing plan for an acupuncture practice. So I hope this makes sense.

My hope is that you walk away from this talk with just one or two actionable items, something that resonated with you that you’ll actually do. Just one simple tweak to the way you do things can make all the difference in the world. For those of you that don’t know me. My name is Jeffrey Grossman. I started my acupuncture practice in 1998.

I’m the founder and owner of Acupuncture Media Works, Accu Perfect websites. And after you downloads and like many of them. I’ve struggled in my practice. I had no idea how to grow my practice, how to do marketing, how to talk to patients, how to give the report of findings. And none of that was part of my forte.

And I didn’t have the savvy or the mindset to do that. And I noticed that there was a huge. I didn’t know how to run a business. I knew all the techniques and all the tools to help me become a successful practitioner, but I didn’t have what it takes to run a business. And as an acupuncturist, you are an entrepreneur, you are a business owner, and you’ve got to wear both hats, the hat of the healer, which hopefully you do well.

And the hat of the entrepreneur business person, CEO. These are why the AAC is bringing these talks to you. This is why I’m here to spread this information to you as well. I want you to also realize that if you don’t know this by now, You, my friends are an incredible resource, your natural healers, you know how to help people become balanced and healthy.

You’re use safe, natural drug-free methods and you’re changing lives every single day on your treatment table. People need you, they need your services and they want your help. But the thing is they might actually not know that you are available. They might not even know that you can help them with condition X, Y, or Z.

And that’s what these talks are about. That’s what I’m here to do is to help you be seen, to be heard and to ultimately bring more people into your practice so you can ultimately make more money so you can live the life that you want. So I want to remind you that your. That I’m here for you. And if at the end of today’s talk, or whenever you’re seeing this presentation that you feel like you need help getting set up or becoming focused or some accountability, or need a little bit of motivation.

Please reach out to me. There’s more opportunities now than ever to help more people, but you have to understand what they’re looking for now. And you also have to learn to understand how this integrates into marketing into your practice. Because like I said today, w use, today’s talk as a resource to help reset your practice because one or two simple things.

That you tap into can make all the difference. Okay. So I’m going to go ahead and start sharing my slides and jump into the nine growth strategies to build a referral based practice. I have a gift for you guys at the end of today’s training, I have a ebook that you can download. That’s got outlined some sample scripts and some sample calls to action.

Examples that we’re going to be talking about today. Today’s presentation is going to be relatively on the shorter side, 20 minutes or so. Yeah. If you want to dive into the details, I will give you a link to download this after today’s presentation. The reason I do that is because if I give you the link, now you’re going to take off, download the ebook, and you’ll forget that I’m even here.

And I don’t want you to do that because I value your time. And I’ve got this gift for you, and I’m going to share it with you towards the end of today’s training. First thing about referral strategy that I really want to get across to you is the fact that you need to identify your perfect patient avatar.

What the heck is the perfect patient. Avatar. Glad you asked. So this is the idea of identifying who your perfect patient is. If you haven’t done this exercise before I encourage you to do this, I do this with all of my coaching clients. And it is important because. Understand who it is that you are perfect patient is, then you can talk directly to that person, you know exactly what their problem our problem is.

And you know exactly what solutions that you have to. That can help address their particular problems. And when you identify your perfect patient, then you start identifying the patients that you really resonate with, that I call your a patients. These are the people that you love. These are the people that when you see them on your schedule, your energy raises as opposed to what certain people on your schedule.

Maybe your energy pulls you down a little bit because it’s going to be a challenging. I get that all the time. So when you identify your perfect patient avatar and what they like and what their needs are, and then you can create an ambassadors, people who can actually go out there and communicate the messages of what you do and how you can help by identifying who your patients are, which are, is one of the first steps to building a referral.

Next thing to do is to really get clear on your core message. Now I’ve been teaching practice management class for the last four years, and I’ve been in this business of helping practitioners grow their practice since 2002. One thing that I’ve come across that is really true is the fact that not many of you have a core message and it’s really important to have this.

Kind of like your elevator pitch, but it’s a little different. Okay. And if you don’t have your core message, I did a workshop on this a couple of weeks ago and I encourage you to really dive into what it means to develop your core message. First thing about that core messages is I D it comes in three parts.

You have to identify what kinds of problems your patients have. What are they coming to see you for? What are their needs? What keeps them up at night? What hurts them? What do they, what are they struggling with in their life? The next part of that is what you need solutions.

Do you offer your clinic? And then the third part is what will their life look like after they come see you? Okay. Now your core message. Should be just three sentences. Here’s the core message for acupuncture, MediaWorks, acupuncturists don’t like marketing. They’ve never been taught how to grow their practice.

They never been taught this, the tools and the skills to to develop a business and entrepreneurial mindset here at acupuncture, MediaWorks, and I could perf websites and Accu downloads. We provide online digital print. And coaching solutions for acupuncturists. So they can go out there and grow their practice, educate their patients, make greater income and change the world.

One person, one needle at a time. That is the basis of what a core message is. Now. It’s not exactly word for word. I’m just going off of my mind here, but that is what you should come up with. Something like that core messaging is important because it allows you to. Brand your practice brand, your website, brand your business cards, brand all of your marketing collateral based upon what your core message is.

Okay. The next part of the creating a referral strategy is connecting with referral sources. Okay. What are your best sources? How are you going to reach out to them and what are you going to supply them? First thing. Who is already referring to you? Are there any doctors, natural paths, chiropractors, massage therapists, dentists, eye doctors.

I don’t know. Who are you getting referrals from now? Write a list of them. And then. Figure out a way and a strategy that you can start. We reaching out to them on a regular basis and also identify the tools like booklets and conditioned specific cards and brochures and gift certificates and other collateral.

That you can share with them that they can share with their clientele. Okay. Referral strategy, number three, referral strategy. Number four is make it easy to get those referrals. Okay. So what tools can you use to make it easy? One thing that’s really important are making sure that you have gift certificates or a call to action cards that have.

Something on there that is a loss leader that motivates people to be like, wow, that sounds interesting. I feel like I need that. I’m going to reach out to Jeffrey too, to get that appointment or whatever that is. Now, what I’ve done in the past was. Was mini stress reduction treatment. So at any event I did or any talk that I did, I would offer people to come in for a mini stress reduction treatments where I would just do 0.0 Shannon, middle ear.

I called them acupuncture, happy hour events. And that was my loss leader to get people into the clinic so they could experience acupuncture, experience me. So I could talk with them, get more information about them and then let them try the treatment. And then from this. Upsell them into the next level of care, which is coming in for the comprehensive evaluation.

And then from there, move them into treatment plans. So what do you have now to make it easy to have other people refer to you? Calls to action are important. I’m going to talk about that in a minute more. Also, it’s important to show Goodwill by referring out to others first. So maybe you need to create a list of other people that you can refer to other specialists that maybe you’re not getting the right the right care.

Sorry about that. The right the right results for your patients that you expect. And maybe you can then refer them out to somebody that you know, and trust. Okay. What resources do you have? Brochures and flyers and how can you make it easy for people to give you reviews and testimonials on your website, on social media and and in the clinic.

Okay. Referral strategy, number five. How do you reduce the risk of people falling out of. Now, if you’ve been in practice for any length of time, you probably have more inactive patient folders and you have active patient folders. So first thing to do is to plant the seeds from day one. Of the, what you what they can expect from you during their care.

And one thing that’s really important to discussed is your treatment protocol, your outlines, and how you have a unique strategy that, that how you can go, you will go about getting them from point a, which is I’m in pain, I’m uncomfortable, or I don’t sleep well to a point B. They they. At night they have unlimited energy.

They can now go out there and ride their bicycle. Cause they’re not in pain anymore. What is the process, the path that you have, or that you can think of, that you can map out for your patients, maybe it’s eight treatments. What are you going to do? Visit 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12 treatments and so on. So there are unique and specific.

That you can do where you can set expectations from day one to plant the seeds towards health and longevity. One of those things is making sure that you answer the five questions when you deliver your porta findings again, on the ebook that I have for you, there’s more detail about the report of findings that you can access there.

And the report of findings, you asked the answer, the question is, what’s wrong with me? How long is it going to take? What can they expect? What’s it going to cost? And what kind of other, what things that they should be doing at home. Okay. So when you lay that out for a patient, then they have certain expectations.

Again, that’s important piece of the new patient process of getting another piece of that is what stage of healing do you discuss the different stages of healing with your patients? As in relief care, corrective care, maintenance care, wellness care. I imagine that you’re an acupuncturist. And you assume that you have the knowledge that there are different stages of care.

When someone comes in there and obvious pain, they want to get out of pain quickly, that’s relief care, your ultimate goal, where you plant the seeds during that visit is into. Wellness and long-term care if you’re not doing that, please reach out to me at the end of this training. And let’s get on the phone and kind of consult with how you can make that happen.

Okay. This is other sort of findings that you could should be delivering to your patients. And this is the. This is the the stages of care that you could be reviewing with your patients. The visits here are closer together because obviously in this stage of care, you want patients to get better, faster.

So you have more frequent visits as they get better, the time moves out. Okay. There’s a whole conversation around this. When I talk about the report of findings, better for another. Strategy numb referral strategy. Number six is practice and rehearse your referral dialogue. So again, this goes back to creating your core message.

And this also goes back to how. Educate your patients and patient education is what I found in acupuncture. Media works on because there were no tools that I felt comfortable using in my own practice. I created a whole line of marketing tools and educational tools that I wanted to share with my patients and hence share them with other acupuncturists.

So one thing that’s really important for you to determine where you might be lacking in your educational process, in how you educate patients is by asking them this one question. When you tell your family or friends about acupuncture care, what you tell. Or, if you were invited to a party and someone’s oh, what do you go to see your acupuncturist for?

What would you say, ask your patients that question you could do that today or tomorrow, and you’ll be surprised at what some of the answers will be. And sorry about that.

So nature of doing the live training with dogs in the house. So I apologize. Oh my goodness. Excuse me.

I always have to get one last Barkin. So try this, ask your patients what the issue is here and ask your patients to what would they say and you’ll will understand where you might be falling short with regards to your, for patient process and your education strategies?

Because every treatment, my friends. Is an opportunity for you to further educate your patients around what you do. What acupuncture is, what she is, what seasonal changes are happening. Every time a patient comes in every week, you should change your whiteboard to something that elicits a question to them that encourages them to ask you what’s going on.

Okay. So try that also, you might want to ask your patients, how would they explain what she is? When a friend asked him about care, this was really an interesting process that you would be working on in your practice to really find out where you need to fill the patient education gaps. Okay.

Referral strategy, number seven, tone of five, your practice hubs. What is it? What’s your practice hub, right? So anytime someone refers to you, or anytime you hand out a business card, anytime you do any type of marketing. Oh my goodness. Excuse me.

Anytime you do any type of marketing that. That people will be they’re going to the first place they go to is your acupuncture PR your website, right? So anytime you hand out a business card, anytime you hand out anytime someone refers to you, anytime you place them out on Facebook or.

Where are they going to go? They are going to go to your website. So that is the first impression that everybody will have of you. So every digital strategy, every marketing strategy leads back to your website and not. You need to have a website that works effectively, that communicates the bigger picture of what you have.

And when you identify what your core message is, then you, then when people hit your website, they should have an understanding of what you do immediately as they, when they hit your website. Okay. Referral strategy number eight is be consistent. Okay. So being consistent means that you’ve got your mobile ready.

You’ve got reviews. You’re answering those reviews. You’re keeping current with your website. You’re reaching out to referral networks and you also. Over-delivered you have a process in your clinic that when patient comes in from visit one all the way to visit 12, there are steps and strategies that you go through.

Okay. And then referral strategy. Number nine is make sure you have strong calls to action. Again, if you don’t know what a call to action is, or if you don’t have any of these, you need to get these going up. So on your web. What will motivate a person to raise their hand and be like, I want to come in to see you.

Do you have a download? Do you have a free report? Do you have a gift certificate that they can pull em, start, come into the clinic. Okay. When you do a talk, what will you give them that makes them raise their hand to come in, to see you at? Okay. So calls to action are really important to have in the ebook that I have for you.

You will have some examples that are. So these are some examples. There’s more of them. So types of calls to action or setting up a contact us schedule now downloaded a gift certificate. Sharon social media register for this event. Learn more call now. So these are a couple of examples. There’s more in the ebook that I have available for you.

The key is to have an organized, structured system that you consistently constantly use in order to consistently receive referrals. This is not something that you can just do one off and that, and just assume, but you’ve got to be consistent in asking you’ve got to be consistent in educating and walking people through the particular process on how they can learn more.

Through this educational process about what you do, how you can help in the different conditions you can treat. Okay. So thank you guys for joining me here is the link to the free download, where it has outlines and scripts and samples and examples of calls to action. So you can go to Accumedia.us/growth and download this ebook and it will be available for you, thank you so much for taking the time out to join me. I appreciate you being there. Join next week when the AAC will be hosting yet another live event for you, and it’s going to be great. They just do this and it’s an amazing service to the acupuncture community. Thanks again for joining me.

Talk to you guys soon.

Using Ma Huang in Formulas

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