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Acupuncture Malpractice Insurance – The Greatest Misconceptions About Facial Acupuncture

I get asked frequently is, what are some of the misconceptions that people have about facial and cosmetic acupuncture.

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Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors. Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.

Hi, my name’s Michelle Gellis. I am an acupuncture physician. And I teach facial and cosmetic acupuncture classes internationally and have done so for about 20 years now. One of the questions that I get asked frequently is, what are some of the misconceptions that people have about facial and cosmetic acupuncture.

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And the reason why there are so many misconceptions about facial acupuncture is people really don’t understand that it is not just for cosmetic purposes. So today I am going to discuss some of the greatest misconceptions about Facial acupuncture. And I’m going to start out by telling you what is facial acupuncture.

Facial acupuncture can be for used for cosmetic purposes, things like sagging, fine lines, wrinkles. Dyschromia, other signs of aging or dark spots, red spots, things of that nature. And it can also be used for neuromuscular facial conditions such as Bell’s Palsy, Trigeminal Neuralgia, TMJ, Stroke, MS.

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ptosis, myasthenia gravis, and many other conditions that affect the face. So the ways in which facial acupuncture can bring all of this together is by treating the different layers of the face, including the skin and the muscles, the fat, the fascia, even the bones. of the face can be treated with facial acupuncture, facial cupping, facial gua sha, microneedling, red light therapy.

You can use submuscular needling, facial motor points, and even red light therapy. So all of these tools and treatments come together and fall under the big umbrella of facial acupuncture. One of the questions that I frequently get asked is, How long does a treatment take? If you’re going for cosmetic acupuncture, don’t the treatments take a long time?

And the truth of the matter is, the way that I teach and practice facial and cosmetic acupuncture is the needles can go in for in 10 to 15 minutes and then your patient can rest on the table for 30 or 15 to 30 minutes and during that time you can go and see another patient and then you would come back into the room, take the needles out, do your cupping and gua sha and if you were going to incorporate red light therapy, you could do that while the needles were on.

And microneedling is typically not done at the same time that you’re doing facial acupuncture, but that is a separate treatment and microneedling only takes 20 minutes for a full treatment. So the treatments really do not take that long. And because Insurance does not cover cosmetic acupuncture. Your patients will be paying you in cash.

You won’t be putting it through insurance. And you’re going to be charging more for a cosmetic treatment than you would for a medical treatment. If you were just doing a standard acupuncture treatment. So what might a typical facial acupuncture customer or client look like? People also have a misconception that your clients are going to be Perhaps older, perhaps they will be in a certain socio economic bracket in order to afford this out of pocket treatment.

In 20 years of practice, my patients have ranged in age from people in their late teens who came to me for acne through patients who were elderly and were looking for maybe not just cosmetic, but perhaps some sort of neuromuscular facial. Conditions like trigeminal neuralgia are very common in the elderly, as well as ptosis, which is where one eyelid is lower than the other.

Because as we get older, the eyelids get weaker. And by using facial acupuncture, you can help people to avoid eyelid surgery by using facial motor points and submuscular needling to help and some scalp acupuncture to help to lift the lids so that your patient does not have to have a surgical treatment.

Facial acupuncture is also A great alternative to things like Botox and filler. And individuals who normally would be going every three months for some sort of neurotoxin or filler in their face could be coming to you for regular cosmetic or neuroacupuncture treatments to help to rebalance the face and to increase collagen and increase the movement of the muscles in the face.

It can help with things like fascial adhesions, and even repositioning the fat on the face that tends to move as we get older. The fat on the face moves down from our cheeks down. And facial acupuncture is not just limited to the face, it can be beneficial for the neck, for the chest, and one of the things that we don’t think about by treating the back of the neck, it helps to affect the face.

the front of the neck. As society has evolved over the past 20 years, I’ve noticed more and more patients coming younger with neck wrinkles across their neck from looking down at their phone all day. We can use our medicine needles, cupping, gua sha, working on the back of the neck and on the front of the neck to help to affect the appearance of the neck itself.

What can your patients expect when they come to see you? Are they going to look five years younger, 10 years younger, 20 years younger? Does it actually work? Is it actually effective? And The answer is yes, and depending on a variety of factors, including your patient’s age, their lifestyle, their diet.

Are they drinking enough water? How much sleep do they get? What is their nutrition like? Plus, their underlying TCM diagnosis. Are they blood deficient, indeficient, chi deficient? All of these things are going to play into how quickly they see results and What sort of results they are going to see throughout treatment.

A typical course of cosmetic acupuncture treatments is about three months with your patients coming once a week. And again, if your patient is older or just genetically, they’re predisposed to more sagging and wrinkles. If they live someplace where it’s very sunny and they’re out in the sun all the time, maybe they play tennis or golf or bike or garden and they’re out in the sun and they live in a place in the country.

where the UV rays are stronger, then it may take a little longer for them to see the results that they want. But, um, these things are not all set in stone. I’ve been surprised sometimes by older patients who’ve had amazing results. especially with things like lifting their lids or really affecting the appearance of their neck with just a few treatments.

So in addition to the cosmetic and the neuromuscular types of benefits that your patients can see. There are also things like dealing with acne for your younger patients or your maybe your menopausal patients who are having adult acne. It can also help with hair loss. The same way that we might use a seven star hammer on the scalp, we can use microneedling, dermarolling, and even some acupuncture to help with hair loss, both in on the eyebrows.

And on the head hair, beard hair, and also with acne, skin discolorations like dark spots, red spots, melasma, rosacea, different acne scars. Things that affect the skin, in conjunction with doing our TCM diagnosis, you can effectively help with redness on the face and other skin conditions that your patients might have had to have taken medication for.

ChiroSecure, we can help just with redness. Needle treatments. All of my cosmetic and neuromuscular treatments always include full TCM diagnosis and a full body treatment, which can also be very beneficial when you’re talking about treating the face. If you’re doing a full body treatment and you’re affecting the the different organ systems, not only are you going to affect the health of the different organs that show up on the face, for example, if the kidneys are deficient, they might have dark circles under their eyes.

If they are Large intestine isn’t working well, then they can have a lot of congestion in their skin, or if their lungs aren’t working well, then they can have large pores or oily skin. If the stomach has a lot of heat, they can have that. Acne on the face. So by treating the underlying conditions and the organ systems, you can affect the skin.

And also, for example, treating the spleen can help to lift things up if things are sagging down. Treating the kidneys can help with premature aging. And by treating the These different things, not only are you affecting the skin and the coloration of the skin, the texture of the skin, and the The skin’s ability to snap back and look youthful, but you were also affecting the person’s emotional health.

All of the acupuncture points on the face relate to different organs and when you are treating, for example, stomach four, you are helping the person not only on a physical level to be able to smile more fully, but you are also affecting their ability to process joy. And we do Stomach 9 in every treatment to help people feel more welcome.

And if the person’s face is functioning better, then they are going to feel better. And if they feel better, they are going to look better. There was actually a study done. They took patients and they injected Botox into their forehead and they weren’t able to express anger. And by not being able to express anger, all of that the emotion was still there, but it was being pushed down.

So instead of the emotion being able to be expressed, it was being repressed, and you can imagine what that does to your liver. So when you are doing facial acupuncture on someone, you aren’t just affecting their appearance, you’re affecting their emotional health and their physical health at the same time.

There are different pricing structures. That you can use for different things that you might do in your treatment room to treat the face. For example, facial cupping and gua sha can be done in as little as a half an hour. And so you might have one pricing structure for that. Microneedling is, as I mentioned, a very effective treatment for superficial skin level issues and microneedling treatments in the U.

S. right now. Acupuncturists are charging anywhere from 350 to 600 for a half an hour microneedling treatment. It is important to get trained. You don’t want to attempt to practice facial acupuncture without proper training. There are contraindications, things like high blood pressure, migraines, pregnancy and other things that are contraindications and precautions when you are treating the face.

And the American Acupuncture Council has special release form for practitioners who are practicing facial acupuncture. And there is a list of people who do training specifically in facial and cosmetic acupuncture. That is something that I can’t underemphasize or overemphasize how important it is for proper training.

And to practice before you get out there and practice on your patients. Practice on someone who perhaps a colleague or a family member who you have permission to treat because it is a unique skill set. And using precision needling techniques can really work nothing short of miracles on someone’s face.

I hope I have helped to dispel some of the myths that you might have heard or thought about facial and cosmetic acupuncture. And if you are interested in learning more, you can go to my website, facialacupunctureclasses. com And I have free webinars and blog posts and a lot of information about facial and cosmetic acupuncture.

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Acupuncture Malpractice Insurance – Best of Billing and Coding for Acupuncture

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Acupuncture Malpractice Insurance – What Is Medical Necessity?

I’m having insurance carriers that are coming back and pushing back on some providers or they’re requesting additional information. How do we define it?

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Greetings, everyone. This is Sam Collins, the coding and billing expert for acupuncture and the profession meeting American Acupuncture Council and you. I’m getting a lot of questions as being an expert dealing with lots of issues from writing articles. I get people asking all the time. How do we make sure we have medical necessity?

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I’m having insurance carriers that are coming back and pushing back on some providers or they’re requesting additional information. How do we define it? But I want to go beyond just the carrier. What really is acupuncture medical necessity? How is that defined? Let’s go to the slides. Let’s get into that a little bit and start to give you a good understanding of how do you want to start to approach this, or at least begin to define it.

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So you can define your care. What is acupuncture medical necessity, and who says? Of course you can have the patient. The patients are going to determine medical necessity. Whether or not they want it or not is going to be part of the necessity. Does it make them feel better? Who also determines it?

You, the provider, the doctor, if you will. You’re defining it. How do I define it? What is it that the person should feel? What should they be better about? Or what are we doing? Are we just getting rid of pain? And then, of course, we have to deal with it from an insurance standpoint. And how do we meld all of these things together to start to bring to what really is a necessity and how we might define it maybe slightly differently depending on who it is.

From a patient standpoint, think of it this way. A patient’s going to say, it makes me feel better. It has value. If you can have a person that had migraines. And they come to you now and their migraines are 75 percent less or not at all. There’s a value. They’re going to pay you for that. That is something that they see a value proposition for.

Do keep in mind though, people do things, and this is something my mom always defined, that’s why I’m quoting her. She says people buy what they want and beg for what they need. Have you ever had someone borrow money from you before? Maybe they’d pay rent or something. And then they haven’t paid you back, but the next time you see them, they’re wearing a brand new pair of shoes and you’re thinking, wait a minute.

How’d they buy a new pair of shoes? Haven’t paid me. Because they begged for what they needed, which was to pay rent, but they bought what they wanted, what were shoes. I want you to think of, for cash patients, You have to be the shoes. The person wants it because there’s enough value. How do we create the value?

Because they feel better. They can see the change. So realize that even applies and of course applies for insurance or excuse me, for cash, but even insurance to an extent. Remember, some insurances pay really well, but what about the ones that don’t? High deductibles. We have to create that the patient can see the value.

For me, for acupuncture, this is where I think our biggest growth can be. As people try acupuncture, They begin to realize how much it works. Realize that in the VA, while not very many people are seeking out VA benefits, but do you know for people who do get VA, 38 percent are going to acupuncturist. What are the responses?

It’s very good. Why wouldn’t a VA patient want it when they can see it makes them feel better? Because at the end of the day, it’s treating someone to get them to go, oh, there’s the value, there’s no longer fear. So bottom line is a patient finds it, did it help me? And how do we define health? Always by, do I feel better?

Does it have any less pain? And that’s going to be either with insurance or cash. But create that so the patient understands what are the expectations of care. And then of course it’s how you define it as the acupuncture provider. What are you defining it as? As chi or energy, the very more of A traditional medicine basis, or are you going to go just into, hey, let’s talk about it from pain or dysfunction.

In fact, if you have a loss of qi, what is it going to mean? Maybe a loss of energy, but pain, dysfunction, functional change. And so setting up what the expectations are, what are your goals? So if someone comes in with a headache, what’s the goal? No headache, lesser headaches, less intense. Less back pain. I had someone that completely didn’t want to go to an acupuncturist a few weeks ago, an athlete, I recommend it.

I don’t know. I’m afraid of needles. I said, you got to try it. Turns out acupuncture has helped her. And she, in fact, she was able to compete this past weekend and win a medal at the world championships. Bottom line is, Once people try it, they know it helps. Here’s the end of the day. How are we defining that?

I think it’s mostly getting to people so that they can see that the care is helpful. At the end of the day, necessity is, I got to feel better. Acupuncture really is genius and simple. How does the body communicate? When something’s wrong, the body almost always communicates with some level of, I don’t care what, he could be cancer, you’re gonna have pain.

So therefore, acupuncture, I think in its genius, has always focused on that communication. But that communication, we can go beyond to say, it’s not just about pain relief, but long term health. Changes to be healthier. Let’s talk about it from an insurance standpoint. What do they see it as? How do they define it?

Insurance says of course, we know obviously it’s pain. It could be acute, chronic, nausea, vomiting, pretty well covered as well. But it has to be medically necessary, must be delivered toward a defined response. something evidence based, like I can show that the patient is better as a result, meaning they want a continuation of treatment that is contingent upon progression towards defined treatment goals and evidenced by specific significant objective functional improvements.

And again, this goes back to outcome assessments. If you’re not using outcome assessments as an acupuncturist, You’ve got to begin. It’s the easiest way to define your changes. It’s the one most accepted because it’s right there. It’s black and white. The patients start off with a 70 percent disability and after three weeks of care they’re down to a 30%.

Yeah, you’ve made them better. Evidence base is going to be your basis. And it says ongoing services, including monitoring of outcomes of progress with a change in treatment plan, withdrawal of treatment if the patient is not improving or regressing. So in other words, simply put, if the person is not improving, it’s not medically necessary.

There’s got to be a change. Now, you could argue without the care, they would get worse. Here’s what it said. Once the functional status has remained stable for a given condition, without expectation of additional functional improvement, any treatment program designed to maintain optimal health in the absence of symptoms or in chronic conditions without exacerbation of symptoms.

In other words, now it’s maintenance. Now, I’m a believer that And health. When you really think of when we say health insurance, is that what we’re really saying? Are we saying sick insurance? And therein lies the difference. And this may be the bridge of getting a patient to understand, are we going to wait for you to get sick?

Are we just going to keep you healthy in the first place? Why eat healthy food? Why go to the gym? Why they have a better lifestyle? All those things are part of health, but we have to start to find where does insurance fit. And it doesn’t always when it comes to healthcare. And there’s going to be a defining difference of getting the patient to understand, which means we’ve got to really understand it from this standpoint.

What are the expectations? Pain. Decrease it. Make them feel better. The body always responds that way. Now, there’s some things that may not be associated. There are some carriers now that even cover PTSD and anxiety. And maybe they’re not painful, but there’s an outcome of change because there’s improvement.

And I don’t care what you have. If you make a person better, they’re going to have better function. Functional improvement, though, best defined by clinically meaningful improvement on validated disease specific outcomes. If you have a headache, use the headache index. You have PTSD, use that index. Low back, use that index.

There’s all types. If you’re a member of our service, we’ve got them all on our side for you. Here’s the bottom line is, show me how the person is better and what they can do in their life or activities of daily living. Of course, any reduction in pain medication. We are the Society of Drugs. How many times do you watch a TV show that they’re advertising a drug?

They don’t even tell you what it’s for, but just say you better look. What about a decrease there? Let’s keep the person healthy. And then objective measures demonstrating the extent of meaningful improvement. So again, always focus on the patient improving because it says here, additional treatment or as an example to reach further durable improvement or ongoing management.

It’s got to be improvement, not stabilization. And of course, anything that you think is causing the patient to have this recur, it’s going to be improved. is going to be an important part because there is a difference between purely supportive care, meaning I’m keeping them even, or flare ups. Flare up comes, we calm it back down.

Bottom line is medical necessity is defined by, am I making a person better? But who is defining it will determine the payment. A patient will define it easy. You’re making me better out of pain? But once I’m stable, the value’s not there. Where do I fit for insurance? The same way. Your goal. Do what you do well for your patients.

Get them better. Define it in ways that people can see it objectively, and in ways that you can repeat. Ultimately, continue doing that job. The more access people get to acupuncture, the more you’re going to see more people, because realize, once a person goes into acupuncture, it’s oh my god, I didn’t think that was going to work.

That’s really our goal. We’re seeing it in the VA and other places. Your bottom line is, Defining necessity by your methods, by improvement, and melding all of those together. They’re not exclusive, but certainly you’re going to have a lot of patients that may not have coverage. Medical necessity is they feel better.

That’s what you do. I wish you well, my friends, and I’ll say the American Acupuncture Council, our network is always there to help you. In fact, we have an upcoming webinar on VA. You can watch it and view it. I want to make sure that you’re doing as best you can to utilize your business, and as your means of a good lifestyle, but the thing you really like doing is helping patients.

Till I see you again.

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Acupuncture Malpractice Insurance – Spleen and Kidney Channels and Lumbar/Abdominopelvic Dysfunction

And this is part two from a presentation I gave on the stomach channel. So we’ll compare the anatomy of the stomach channel with the spleen and kidney channel.

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Hi, I’m Brian Lau, I’m with AcuSport Education, also with Jingjin Movement Training. We’re going to be looking at the anatomy of the abdominal region of the spleen and kidney channel today. And this is part two from a presentation I gave on the stomach channel. So we’ll compare the anatomy of the stomach channel with the spleen and kidney channel.

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So just a little bit of a heads up I have multiple hats like many of us do. One of my main hats is I’m an anatomist. I lead dissection with AcuSport Education, but also with the University of Tampa. Physician Assistance Program. So I do a lot of exploration in human anatomy. So that’s the lens that we’re going to be looking at as we delve into these Fascial layers of the spleen and kidney channel.

But of course all of that gives a lot of clinical relevance So we’ll talk about it from a clinical perspective also. So let’s go ahead and go to the PowerPoint We’ll start looking at initially the spleen channel. So I have these, Additions to Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy. They don’t have the acupuncture points on this.

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Like I put these on manually. Netter is just one of the gold standards of anatomical illustrations, and it’s just such great illustrations that I thought I would add the adapt it by adding, in this case, the spleen channel. And as we know, the spleen channel is on the lateral edge of the rectus abdominis so useful information, but we can talk about the significance of that in just a second.

As we travel down to the lower portion of the spleen channel on the abdomen, we have spleen 12, spleen 13 at the inguinal ligament, spleen 12 also, but it’s on that lateral border of the femoral artery. So this will be our first window into understanding the depth in the fascial layer that makes up the spleen channel.

So keep that one in mind as we go to the next image. So what this next image is showing, also from Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy, is the arteries. There’s another image for the veins. They run together, but the vascular structures of the anterior abdominal wall. First of all, notice that this epigastric artery in the vein, like I said, runs together.

directly with it. That’s in a separate illustration for Netter, but that’s fine. You get the general idea that it’s running along here. That branches off of the femoral artery, or excuse me, the iliac artery in that region where it’s connecting with the femoral artery. So it’s branching off of that region of spleen 12.

And where does it go? It goes deep to the rectus abdominis, behind the rectus abdominis, And that’s the territory that it travels. In my mind, this is the Chiang Mai. This is the the vessel that you can palpate on the front. You can often feel a strong pulsation, especially if people don’t have good circulation in the aorta.

More blood shunts through this area. So it’s like a reservoir. It can open up or close up depending on the needs of the body. And it runs and follows the trajectory of the Chiang Mai. It branches into the thoracic artery and vein, which go to the breast, kind of one of the functions of the chong mai.

Sends out branches along the intercostal arteries and veins, and then eventually it branches into cervical arteries too that go up into the face. So That’s the territory that we’re looking at for the spleen channel. We’ll look at another image in a second on that. Also the chong mai follows the kidney channel points.

So again, we’re looking at a fascial layer that lives behind the rectus abdominis. And that’s going to be the deeper yin channel territory of the spleen and kidney channels. So here’s the kidney channel points. The kidney channel points are going to be on the medial edge of the rectus abdominis, pretty close to the linea alba, 0.

5 sun. And it’s going into the rectus abdominis muscle, but my target tissue is not at the rectus abdominis, but that posterior rectus sheath. So when we compare that to the spleen channel on the lateral edge of the rectus abdominis, same thing. It might be into the muscle, but posterior rectus sheath is going to be my target.

So this would be an easier image to look at if we can see a cross section to understand that layer. So here where we were last time, when we looked at the stomach channel is following these fascial layers of the external oblique, a little bit of the bifurcation of the internal oblique fascia going on top of the rectus abdominis.

The needle can get into that anterior rectus sheath, maybe potentially into the muscle. But that’s the territory, that’s the depth, that’s the region that I want to address when I’m treating it. Whereas, if I’m in the spleen channel, or the kidney channel, we’re looking at the internal oblique fascia, transverse abdominis fascia that goes posterior to the rectus abdominis.

So this posterior rectus sheath. So if I’m coming in at the spleen channel at that semi lunar line, I’m into this window of tissue that goes deep to the rectus abdominis. If I’m coming at the medial edge of the kidney channel, again, I want that needle to traverse down to that posterior rectus sheath. So I want to affect this layer here, multiple importances of that, but one very simple one is if I look at this bigger cross section, rectus abdominis.

Spine, erector spinae, quadratus lumborum. Is that fascia layer is continuous with the transverse abdominis and the internal obliques? And that’s going to continue to come into a seam at the thoracolumbar fascia as a structure called the lateral raphe. And that lateral raphe is going to separate into a deeper layer that goes between the quadratus lumborum and rector spinae, and a superficial layer that goes above the rector spinae.

So point is when I’m treating this deeper fascia layer, I’m speaking to, communicating with. The musculature like the quadratus lumborum and rector spinae. So there’s a lot of fossil communication between the front and the back through these abdominal fossil layers.

If I follow that posterior rectus sheath up first of all, let’s go back to the anterior rectus sheath. If I follow the anterior rectus sheath, part of the stomach channel, that’s going to go superficial to the ribcage. So I’m looking up at the diaphragm, there’s the xiphoid process, the stomach channel would go on the anterior surface of the ribcage.

If I’m following that posterior rectus sheath up, that’s going to blend in with the diaphragm. So it’s a different layer, only separated by, an inch and a half, two inches, pretty small distance. But but it makes a big difference internally if I’m going deep to the ribcage, and wrapping around to the back versus going superficial to the ribcage.

So this is my interpretation with the spleen sinew channel. It connects with that ribcage, excuse me, connects with the diaphragm, loops around and attaches to the spine through these attachments of the diaphragm called the cruciate the diaphragm. So when I’m treating this fascia layer, I’m going to have a much bigger impact on breathing much bigger impact on spinal health also.

Kidney channel, the kidney sinew channel doesn’t really travel through the abdomen, so I didn’t use that image, but there’s a lot of discussion with the kidney channel of how it loops into this region of related fascia. Especially with the lower rectus abdominis, it has a lot of connections into the pelvic floor, through the abdominal layers, into the multifidi.

This is the low connecting channel. It talks about that channel coming up that layer. We’re talking about posterior rectus sheath following the kidney channel to a point just below the, um, pericardium. The pericardium sits right on top of the diaphragm. So that’s exactly what it does. It comes to a point right to the, just below the pericardium, and then it loops around into the lumbar spine.

Like I said, a lot of anatomy, you don’t have to get in the weeds with it. But there’s much more of a connection with the diaphragm, much more connection with the pelvic floor, much more of a connection with the lumbar spine when we’re treating that posterior rectus sheath. That’s the take home. So let’s look at some pain patterns that are common when you’re treating the rectus abdominis.

We looked at this one with the stomach channel also because you could get trigger point formation in the belly of the muscle or at stomach 25 and this tendinous inscription between bundles of muscle. But very frequently. When there’s dysfunction here, it’s more on the edge of the muscle at that semilunar line, maybe a little bit of the obliques, maybe a little bit of the rectus abdominis fascia.

It’s like a triad between the muscle groups of the obliques, rectus abdominis, and that fascial seam where all of that fascia comes together. That can be a very prominent area for trigger point formation that can give a very gassy, distended feeling when you palpate it. Maybe that’s what patients are complaining about.

They often want to stretch that area sometimes that can refer all around to the back it can refer deep into the pelvis, it can feel like it’s internal in the pelvis. It’s a pretty broad distribution of pain that patients might either complain about or might be a component of their low back pain, for instance.

Or distention, bloating, et cetera. So along the spleen channel is the very frequent aspect of where these trigger points form. Anywhere from spleen 15 to about level of stomach 27 is pretty common. So you’re feeling at that semilunar line, feeling for fibrosity. I usually push a little into the edge of the rectus abdominis.

Another region where there’s common trigger point formation would be the medial edge. Now we’re at the kidney channel. So if I’m at that medial edge, it’s like I can scoop deep to the muscle and, I’m palpating slightly into the rectus abdominis, but I’m really feeling more for that posterior rectus sheath.

It’s like I’m going through that medial edge to get to the posterior rectus sheath. I can direct into the rectus abdominis itself, or I can direct into the linea alba along the REN channel. And same thing, a lot of pain, especially below the belly button umbilicus, maybe halfway between the pubis and the umbilicus is a common region.

It’s not going to always be exact. But along that kidney distribution is a very common area of trigger point formation for deep abdominal pain, especially abdominal pain that’s related to menstrual pain, dysmenorrhea. So for those patients who are having very difficult sensations during menstruation, this is a key area to look at.

You also have this paramedis muscle, which attaches to the linealba. That’s going to be at the lower kind of kidney 11 region that you’d have access to that. That can give a certain amount of pain in that abdominal area that can spread up to the umbilicus. The lower portions. We talked about this one of the stomach channel could be at the lateral edge along the stomach channel because this muscle narrows quite a bit as it gets to the pubic bone.

There’s not a whole lot of space on the muscle left here at the pubic bone, but really often it’s in that mid belly just off the linea alba. That’s where you frequently get this deep radiation bilaterally into the lumbar spine. And iliac crest region that can be its own pain pattern driving lumbar pain, but it might also be a component of things like lumbar facet pain.

Very important area to palpate, usually just above the pubic bone. Sometimes you even have to press the muscle into the pressing it into the pubic bone to elicit this sensation. But it’s a common area where there’s trigger point formation that could be a big component of lumbar pain that you wouldn’t necessarily think if you didn’t know the referral patterns.

Obviously you’d be palpating in the iliac crest, gluteal muscle, sacral area, lumbar spine. There might also be trigger point formation there because of its communication front to back. But don’t forget about this area. Alright, just a good netter image to see that. Spleen channel runs along the lateral edge, stomach channel runs in the middle, but as I get lower down, that line of the stomach channel really takes me to the lateral edge of the rectus abdominis.

If I move over a little bit to the kidney channel, that’s frequently where I’m going to find that trigger point formation right up against the pubic bone. Whoops.

I’m going to go back to this muscle. The other kidney channel points will take me through that medial edge so I can get to the rectus abdominis and feel into that posterior rectus sheath, spleen channel points. Again, I can through that lateral edge of the muscle at that union where it’s going to then dive deep underneath the rectus abdominis.

So any aspect that I’m needling through kidney and spleen, my tendency is to think into that posterior rectus sheath, which is slightly deeper than the muscle. So last time we looked at the motility of the stomach organ. This is looking at the kidney organ because movement in this area, if we can free the movement and control the abdominal movement we can get that flexion extension.

The kidney organ itself moves along the psoas. As I take a deep breath in, that drives the kidney down, it creates a certain amount of rotation in the kidney also, and the exhale and the diaphragm rises, the kidneys rise with it. There’s a movement from diaphragmatic breathing that if I can open that up by working on the the channels, increased breathing, that can be helpful, but it can also allow me to get a more more, efficient movement that can help mobilize the kidney organs, which is going to have good impact on the kidneys themselves, but also with lumbar pain and abdominal type situations that could be involved with the channels.

All right. So let’s look at a exercise that I do and I teach quite frequently. It’s called the spinal wave. I have a video for it. I can talk through some key points. This will be on the PowerPoint. Let me get to that slide. And this is on my YouTube channel, JingJinMovementTraining, if you want a reference, I also go into more verbal instruction on it.

But this one doesn’t have any narration, but I’ll narrate over it. Spinal wave is engaging the rectus abdominus. lengthening it. Engaging, ribcage comes closer to the pubic bone, so posterior tilt, neutral to anterior tilt, posterior tilt, anterior tilt. Same time, that ribcage drops, so this is a different variation where I bring that wave up to the whole spine.

And chest opens, but same spinal wave.

And this video shows variations with the arms and sending that energy out the arms, but whether you get that aspect of the patients, that initial one with the hands on is really the key starting position for patients, there’s a rotational version, et cetera. So you can build on it. Like I said, there’s this instruction is on my YouTube channel if you want to look at it a little bit closer.

All right, so maybe I have a few moments to go over that in my studio. I’m going to exit the PowerPoint and let’s back up and we’ll look at that real quickly.

All right, so let’s look at the spinal wave. I often, when I’m working with patients, I have them put a hand, and I do it myself this way too, put a hand on the lower rib cage and put a hand just below the umbilicus. So lower dantian. The hands aren’t doing anything. The hands are just helping me find that movement in the abdominals.

So the idea is I want to initiate that movement by pulling the pelvis up in the pubic bones. I’ll take me into a posterior tilt. Ribcage descends. Expand. Press. Expand. So I’m using the abdominals to drive spinal motion, drive kidney motion. Inhale, fill that area up. Exhale, compress starting from the pubic bone, rib cage follows.

Inhale, exhale. So you can also start this seated with patients, because very frequently patients are stiff with the spine, or yourself if you’re doing it for your own health. Sometimes they just want to do it with the knees, so they just move the knees or they move the hips or something like that.

But they have to engage the center. So pulling up the pubic bone, down the rib cage. Top hand shifts back, expand. Bottom hand shifts back, top hand shifts forward. Press, expand. Press, expand. So it takes control, takes practice, you’re engaging the front, expanding the front. You actually engage the transverse abdominis quite a bit, this one.

That’s why I like this one for the kidney and spleen channels as you’re starting to engage. Those deeper abdominal areas, exercising, massaging, increasing circulation between the front. Very nice. Thanks for checking this webinar out. Also, thank you to American Acupuncture Council, I always appreciate the opportunity to go over this information.

A lot of fun for me very exciting stuff in my mind hope you enjoyed it, and I will see you guys another time.

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Acupuncture Malpractice Insurance – The Concept of Yin Fire in Pediatrics Part 2

I’m going to be, this is going to be part two of YinFire

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Hi, my name is Moshe Heller, and I’m from Moshen Herbs, and also Jingshen Pediatrics I’m going to be, this is going to be part two of YinFire, and I want to thank the American Acupuncture Council for hosting me. And so let’s go right into the slides. Okay, so the first herb of of this formula, or, and the emperor herb, is Huang Qi radix astragali, and it really works on supporting the, helping the spleen raise the clear qi up, and so it is it actually addresses the main mechanism, and Lidongyuan really like this herb to be included because it also helps support the lung qi and and the exterior and regulate the the opening and closing of the pores, meaning that it helps to close and prevent spontaneous sweating because of this relationship between the spleen and the lung.

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Li Dongyuan said that when the spleen is when the earth is deficient, then the suffering next phase will be the metal or lung. Therefore by support, by choosing Huang Chi, not only are you supporting the main mechanism that’s failing in the spleen, but you are also supporting the lung.

It’s also very interesting that I remember learning with Ted Kaptchuk this learning about Huang Chi, and he said and stressed the idea that if you want. Something. You wanna take something to help you do something? Take one Q. If you try to take RenQian for that thing, it won’t make you do anything, it’ll make you stop and think.

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So RenQian actually works more on this kind of ability to process thought, whereas HuangQi actually activates and make you, helps you, give you energy to do things. So that’s like at the core of this formula Baichu again is another minister that helps in the transformation of dampness and for, and the transport, transportation and transformation process of the spleen Zhegansao supports that too and helps in harmonizing.

It’s very interesting that DongWei is included in this formula because DongWei actually provides a balance for RenShen and FengQi and allows them to be more balanced by supporting the ying qi aspect of the, um, the process. And as we know, dang gui is the herb that supports the qi of the blood.

So it’s the more yang aspect of the blood. And that’s why dang gui is really important in supporting balancing qi and blood. And and harmonizing the functions of formula. ChenP is included also to support the transfer, moving the qi and supporting the transformation and transportation.

Meaning that the tonifying, cloying nature of the above herbs are mitigated by ChenP. And then the most interesting part of Buzongi Chitang is the last two envoys, the Shengma and Chaihu, which together are, they’re both in the warm acrid section and of herbs. So you might think, oh, this is not a great formula or combination for fevers, but Actually, Buzhou Nishitang is a very important herb for combination for fevers, as that’s what Li Dongyuan made it for.

And the idea is that the warm, acrid nature of Shengmai and Chaihu, other than lifting the yang and supporting that kind of uplifting effect it also helps in warming and helping with the issues of the spleen vacuity. So this is an amazing formula. It has a lot of variations and can be used for a wide variety of symptoms.

As when we read about it in Bensky, there are three main symptoms. Patterns that yeah, that it addresses, one of them, the collapse of the central gene, meaning we know it for collapse of organs like hemorrhoids and stuff like that. But originally that was that was an expansion of this formula, but it’s an amazing formula, as I said, and has a lot of application, a lot of variations.

I invite you to check it out. explore it and use it. And it’s it’s quite an interesting combination. Thank you for listening. And please visit first of all, Moshen Herbs. This is my herb, the herb company, which I Buzong Mi Qi Tang is not there, but there are many herbs that you can use and also Jingxuan Pediatrics is where we might present some of those lectures.

So this is the end of part two of the concept of yin Fire in Pediatrics. I would like to thank the American Acupuncture Council for hosting this talk. And I hope to see you soon. Thank you.

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Acupuncture Malpractice Insurance – Secrets of Marketing Your Facial Acupuncture Practice PT2

So there are a lot of different facets to marketing facial acupuncture. And some of them are very similar to marketing any acupuncture practice. Some of them are very unique.

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Hi, my name’s Michelle Gilles. I am an acupuncture physician practicing in Florida, and I want to thank the American Acupuncture Council for this opportunity to speak to you today about marketing your facial acupuncture practice. Now, last time I spoke in part one, I did an introduction to marketing your facial acupuncture practice, and if you missed it, you can check it out.

And today, I am going to pick up where we left off last time, so if you can go to the first slide.

So there are a lot of different facets to marketing facial acupuncture. And some of them are very similar to marketing any acupuncture practice. Some of them are very unique. So today we’re going to talk about mailing and newsletters. blog posts, community engagement, workshops and seminars, and collaboration with other wellness practitioners.

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So when we think about marketing, one of the things, one of the terms that is used is lead magnets. And what that means is ways that you can bring people into your practice, things that will attract more business. So podcasts are a great idea. Things like we’re doing right now, where you either through a short or a long version of a podcast, give some information about a particular topic.

Doing happy hours is a great way to bring business into your facial acupuncture practice. Now, these do not have to involve alcohol. You can do a happy hour where you maybe teach your clients something. And you would have refreshments. And then you can provide Maybe something small like a serum or a little takeaway for them and you would educate them as to the benefits of facial acupuncture.

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You could offer free treatment. Red light treatment or maybe a quick hand microneedling. That’s another way to attract more people into your practice. Creating a book like an actual physical book or an online book with information about facial acupuncture, tips for self care at home. Also, on your website and in your social media, you can do surveys and quizzes.

People love to answer those things and that can bring more business in that way. Additionally, having A webinar where you do something longer online or a workshop where you might perhaps teach your patients how to dermaroll or do facial cupping and gua sha. Those types of things where it’s self care and you’re giving them a useful tool.

Also, going to health fairs is a wonderful way to attract more patients, because you can have people fill something out for a prize, you can do a skin assessment, you can do a health assessment, feel their pulses, look at their tongue, and talk to them about skin care for their particular. constitution type.

For the health fairs, as I mentioned, you can do a skin assessment. You can do little promo cards, and on the promo card you might give a discount on maybe a product that you sell, and then also list the benefits of facial acupuncture. You could give those away. You can have. Other promotional items, little collagen eye masks, massage pens, the one in this picture, where people can roll it on their face, and then the name of your practice would be on there.

You could do a spin the wheel, have one of those wheels, and people spin the wheel, and they get some sort of a prize for winning. Next slide.

Additionally, use your website. On your website, you can have all of your blog posts, testimonials, before and after photos, an ebook. So on your social, you would have a link to your website where people can see on your social. If I click here, it’ll take me to the website and I can see the testimonials, the before and afters, read the blog posts, etc.

Also, you can do mailings. Now, these can be actual in the mail mailings, or you can do mailing through email, and there are several different elements to mailing. You want to have a hook, and the hook might be a question, such as you why do people go to facial acupuncture? That might be the hook, and then people will open it, And maybe on the second line, it’ll say, click here to learn more.

And then once they’re opened, the logo should be on the top. And then in the body of the email, you might want to ask a question, state how you will solve their problem, maybe how they’ll feel after they’ve had a treatment, but always have a call to action. Don’t just provide information. and not tell them what to do.

So the what to do might say call our office, go to my website. Those types of things would be a call to action and always have a link to your website and any social in the email.

So here are some examples of marketing hooks that you might have in your email, like in the subject. So examples are three smart, three things smart people do when trying to, and then you would put in the outcome, tighten their skin, three things smart people do when trying to lose dark spots, or three mistakes people often make when trying to.

And then you put in the outcome. And also magic keys. Giving them like some kind of magical key to fix whatever their problem is. The one thing that I finally did to And then the outcome. Get rid of my dark spots. Tighten my loose skin. This is one thing my patients do on a regular basis. So these are the types of things that are going to cause people to want to click on your email.

Some other ones for your Maybe your blogs or your website or some promotional material that you might hand out. So reveal your natural beauty, rediscover radiance, unlock your skin’s potential. And all of these types of hooks will have a first part and a second part. So goodbye to fine lines and wrinkles Embrace, embrace youthful skin through facial acupuncture.

Shorter hooks can be helpful. Not everyone wants to read a very long hook. So having something shorter, unlock the secret to glowing skin today. And if someone sees that in their email, they’re more likely to click on something that sparks their interest. Your key to radiant beauty awaits. Revitalize your appearance.

Just one click.

When you’re working on your newsletter, there are a lot of different ways to put one together. Many mailing things like Constant Contact or MailChimp have their own way to design a mailing or you can just design it in Word or in Canva and it’s You want to include either part of a blog post or a link to a blog post that will take them to your website.

Have the testimonials in there. Do the before and afters. Write in your newsletter. You can have a contest. You can have famous quotes. These are all things that can, when put together, can really make for a really nice newsletter that you send out. Blog posts should be short. People should be able to read it.

in less than five minutes and sometimes if you put at the top how long it’s going to take to read it that helps as well. You can embed it right into your website and make certain that there is an image and that the image has attributes to it and says what it is. And these are all things that help Google to find your blog post.

Put this in your social and in your emails. So when you take the time to create a blog post, you want to have links to it in as many different places as possible. But the most important thing is that you optimize it for SEO. So don’t just write the blog post and think, Oh, it’s done. You want to make sure that your SEO is optimized so that the when Google is looking for a keyword like melasma, it can find it because you’ve included that in your keywords, but your keywords have to actually represent what’s in the article or it won’t work.

Community engagement is also important. Providing donations to different organizations, advertisements. If there’s local fundraisers going on, join a Rotary Club or any business networking groups in your area. Things like Women’s League. All of these types of organizations can connect you with more people.

And people do business with people that they know and they like. You can also do collaborations with other wellness practitioners. So go to a spa and tell them about what you do. See if they’ll hold on to your business cards. Salons, OBGYNs, they’re all about women’s health and wellness. Massage therapists.

And. You take their cards as well, and cross refer to one another.

This is a list of some of the classes that I teach if you want to learn more about facial acupuncture, and how it can help you to bring more business into your practice. Facial acupuncture is a great way to expand the scope of what it is you do. It’s very popular, and I teach classes. I have a certificate course.

I have an advanced certificate course, and I teach facial cupping in Gua Sha, derma rolling, skincare, microneedling, ethics, safety, neuromuscular treating neuromuscular conditions and even self care for acupuncturists. So once again, I want to thank the American Acupuncture Council for this opportunity, and I look forward to seeing you next time.