Tag Archives: Acupuncture malpractice Insurance

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When To Give A Child A Smartphone – Cowan & Heller

 

 

Click here to download the transcript.

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.

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Legal Protection

Acupuncture Malpractice Insurance – Legal Protection

What is the most critical item every acupuncture practice should have?

Acupuncture malpractice insurance ensures you are fully protected with the right insurance to continue helping patients with care and confidence.

One of the several benefits of Acupuncture Malpractice Insurance is legal protection.

American Acupuncture Council recognizes acupuncture as a widely used alternative treatment, but like all healthcare professions, it carries the risk of malpractice complaints.

Acupuncture patients could file lawsuits alleging injury, infection, or malpractice after treatment.

That is why malpractice insurance should be put in place to protect your practice, as it covers legal defense costs, settlements, and judgments should a case proceed.

Remember, the American Acupuncture Council (AAC) offers an unparalleled track record in acupuncture risk management.

There is a reason acupuncturists have trusted AAC with their business for 50 years.

Not an American Acupuncture Council member? Get a Quick Quote and find out how much you will save! Click here!

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You’ve Been Approved for 25 Visits – Now What? Sam Collins

 

 

 

But let’s talk about today’s program. Let’s talk about when you see a policy that says they get 25 visits.

Click here to download the transcript.

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

Greetings, friends and colleagues. This is Sam Collins, your coding and billing expert for Acupuncture, the American Acupuncture Council, the American Acupuncture Council Network. But more importantly to you, your success is ours. We’re always here to try to make sure that you have all the best available information to make your practice thrive.

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I want you to be the best possible provider and focus on that. Allow us the chance, the Council, to be that support service for you, where we’re there to help you with all the nuances. That’s what network members get from us. But let’s talk about today’s program. Let’s talk about when you see a policy that says they get 25 visits.

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What does that really mean? Or when it says we have 40, 80, or whatever, what about some plans that it’s actually unlimited? Does it really mean that? So let’s go to the slides. Let’s talk about this when we get policies that tell us the amount of visits that someone has. What does it really mean when a policy allows 25 visits?

Does it mean they get 25 automatically? That no matter what, I hope all of you are going, well, no, that’s probably not true. What we have to have every time is it has to be medically necessary. It’s not going to be just an automatic. It’s going to be, should it come up as something that’s necessary? In other words, if a person says, I feel fine, I feel perfect, but I want to get my 25 visits.

Will the insurance allow that? And that’s where we have some difficulty because when patients have policies like these, they have the false pretense that, Oh good, that means I can come two times per month this whole year and the rest of my life. Now, as much as I would love that to be true, that isn’t always medically necessary.

So we do have to keep in mind that we need to learn to navigate and achieve the optimum utilization, make sure patients are aware. Now realize, many people have conditions. Pain and otherwise. That could require some acupuncture services that will max out those visits and could be that way, but we have to make sure, do we have it medically necessary?

Is it automatic? Does it mean they get to use it at their discretion, two per month? But what about maintenance? Will that be covered? Well, first we have to think of what is medically necessary because in order to have 25 visits, you’re always going to say they’re looking for medical necessity, something that is necessary for the patient.

And that must be delivered with defined, reasonable, and evidence based goals. Now, realize As an acupuncturist, there’s many things you can treat beyond just simple what I call the physical therapy chiropractic side, which is musculoskeletal and pain. It can go beyond that, but we still have to have evidence of the changes.

It must be based on the patient’s presentation of their diagnosis. Make sure it’s a covered diagnosis. That’s probably going to be number one. For a patient to be covered for acupuncture, you have to find out what are the covered diagnosis. By example, Aetna and Cigna have very similar covered diagnosis, but there are many more with Cigna than with Aetna.

But what about Blue Cross Blue Shield? So it’s sometimes learning that nuance. This is what we do for you at Seminars, of course. So make sure we have the diagnosis, but then also, what is the severity? What are the clinical findings that demonstrate the need for care? It says, continuation of treatment is contingent upon progression towards defined treatment goals evidenced by specific significant objective functional improvements.

Notice it says here, outcome assessment scales, range of motion. The good news is, pain, which is the number one thing acupuncturists treat, is always going to cause some dysfunction of some type. Their function is going to be less based upon their pain. So talk about when a patient says they’re having pain, even if it’s headaches, what is this headache causing you to have problems with?

Oh my goodness, I couldn’t work. I can’t work more than 30 minutes at a time. We’re had to take a day off. All these things demonstrating some type of evidence of a functional change. I think acupuncture works very well here. Think of how many types of doctors you can see, but how many can you treat with that when you leave the visit, You literally feel better.

I mean, if you go to a medical doctor with a headache, and I’m not saying this is a negative, what is a medical doctor going to do? Evaluate you and make sure it’s not nothing more severe, but then otherwise give you a script for pain medication. They call it in by the time you can get the prescription filled, hours later, maybe the next day, then you take it by then.

Maybe the headache was gone on its own or it can help. Someone comes to you with a headache. How many of you have witnessed what I call the miracle of acupuncture? that they leave going, Oh my God, I cannot believe that worked. I’m without a headache and I came in with one. That happens all the time. So we want to demonstrate that the patient has changes.

So always rely on how you document as demonstrating the number of visits. Cause 25 visits are certainly reasonable. If you can show they have a headache after a certain number of visits or time, the headache is gone or reduced. Now, can that headache return? Absolutely. So it’s not a never ending. It says certain conditions require to be co managed by a medical provider.

If you’re dealing with, some plans cover addictions, strokes. Cancer related. Well, those you’d want to be working with them. By the way, I took this directly from Cygnus coverage and it says, medically necessary services including monitoring outcomes with progress and change in treatment, with a withdrawal of treatment if the patient is no longer improving.

I mean, let’s face it, how many patients are going to continue to come to you if you’re not helping? This is the hard part because patients start to understand the value. and necessity of care. Our job is when do we demonstrate that that care is no longer medically necessary from an insurance standpoint.

I think so long as we can demonstrate there’s ebbs and flows and we’re showing improvement or can be supportive, I think we’re going to be on the right track. Just be careful. Maintenance or non covered means it’s intended to improve or maintain general physical condition. I don’t disagree with that. I think certainly healthcare should be part of that, but that’s not what our insurance is for, is it?

Insurance says Sickness or disease. So it’s not about keeping you healthy. I wish we would no longer call it health insurance. We should call it sick insurance. It says maintenance acupuncture services when significant therapeutic improvement is not expected. So it’s maintenance when it’s not expected.

Now that doesn’t mean it has to improve every time. So when someone says there’s 25 visits during that 25 visits, if we’re noticing a continuance of improvement medically necessary, the difference is, How do we demonstrate it? Are you using outcomes to do that? Are you giving me the true objective changes?

Don’t tell me or rely on the patient feels a little better. That’s certainly not going to be adequate. That’s part of it, but they feel better. How? What functional change? What objective change do we have? It says services that do not require the skills of a qualified provider, such as acupuncture, are limited to that can be practiced independently and self administered.

So in other words, if you’re just saying we’re coming in and just doing exercises. only. They’re going to say, well, why couldn’t they continue that at home? So you always want to show that it requires a skill, meaning they’re getting true acupuncture services. Home exercise services can be formed safely and independently.

It can’t be just that. Now, should exercise be part of the care plan? You bet. But I want you to keep in mind, when I go to an acupuncturist, you know what I want? Acupuncture. Chances are we’ve tried exercise. Now that doesn’t mean you’re not going to give me some better ones. And I’ll say doing Qigong type exercises, if you will, or physical therapy type, or just gym type are all helpful.

and could be part of it, but the thing that separates you is going to be the acupuncture. So keep in mind, there is something though that insurances will cover, particularly on some of these visits, what they call supportive care. And it says supportive care can be referred to as ongoing or long term treatment or care, and it may be necessary as treatment for individuals who have reached maximum benefit.

In other words, they’ve reached maximum benefit, but you notice right after you withdraw care, They begin to have a significant drop off. Now, what we want to do, make sure we’re showing, because of that drop off, they’ve been doing home exercise. They’re doing things to help prevent it, but it doesn’t do it.

So, you want to demonstrate that the patient can get ongoing improvement. with the care. When it falls off, we get them back treating again. So keep in mind what they don’t cover though is a true maintenance. Supportive is different from maintenance. Supportive is in the absence of care, it significantly drops off.

Demonstrate that objectively and subjectively. If we’re just saying it stays the same and we don’t want it to get worse, that’s a difference. That’s where this comes in. The member’s symptoms are neither regressing or improving, is considered not medically necessary. If no clinical benefits can be appreciated after four weeks of acupuncture, then why?

Now, notice what it says here. They’re initially giving everyone probably four weeks. Now, four weeks for you could be one time a week. For another person, it could be two times a week. So, keep in mind, it’s not just number of visits, but over a time period. There are some service providers who might do one visit a week.

What I want you thinking of is, if I give care, Can I show improvement? No matter how many number of visits they’ll have, they’ll allow it. I have an office, and this is not a joke, they’ve treated someone probably the last, and I’m not going to over exaggerate it, for sure the last two years, I can say for sure, and they’ve treated this person 40 plus times every single year.

Now, grant you, they have a very significant chronic condition, arthritic changes, and so forth, but they don’t treat 40 continuously. They’ll treat usually 10 or 15 per an episode. They may not see them for weeks, maybe a month, and then treat another 10 or 15. And that same thing has gone on. What they haven’t done is just treat them every other week.

Now, some people might say, maybe that’s better. Well, unfortunately, that’s not how insurance works. So we want to make sure that we can demonstrate always meaningful improvement in symptoms and objective changes. And here’s a good example of a plan like this. This is the Costco plan under it. And I’ll just have you go to the first part here.

It says changes in coverage for chiropractic services. You’re thinking, what? Bear with me and let’s read on. Currently, chiropractic services are covered as an alternative care benefit. You pay a co pay for each covered chiropractic visit, and you’re limited to a combined total of 20 alternative care notice.

Acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopath, and naturopath. Costco is very generous. So what is that telling us? Do we get 20 visits per year? for acupuncture combined with others. But notice what began this year, January 21st, they’re allowing a little bit more for chiropractic, but it’s all based on medical necessity.

They’ll allow up to 90 visits per year. So what I want to highlight is visits, if they give you 90, 20, you still have to demonstrate the patient can get better as a result of the care. That doesn’t mean we’re curing, but maybe we’re getting to a point where they remain functional. And when that dysfunction drops, We continue treating.

Be careful. I think we’re the ones that have to explain to a patient. 25 visits doesn’t mean automatic visits. 25 visits still comes back to medical necessity. So we’ve got to give our patients a financial agreement. I hope all of you are doing something like this. It’s part of the no surprise, regardless of what a patient thinks is covered.

We want to put this out there. Many insurance policies do cover acupuncture care, but this office makes no representation that yours does. Insurance policies may vary greatly in terms of deductible and percentage of coverage for acupuncture care. In other words, we’re going to do the best job we can to get your plan to cover.

We’re not promising anything. What we’re promising is good care and that ultimately you will be personally responsible for the payment of your deductible as well as any unpaid balances. We go further to say if you have insurance, we’ll bill as a courtesy. Of course we will, but payment for your deductibles if it has not been met as your responsibility.

Your copay is due as services are rendered. What we want to do is give patients good quality care. And here’s something to keep in mind. Your practice as a cash practitioner is important, but it’s even the same when it comes to insurance. Insurance pays part of it. It’s just easier for someone to come in when they have insurance that pays part of it.

I want to access that, but I don’t want to give a false sense of security. Think of it this way. When someone really needs care, they pay for it. There’s a value. We want to continue to have that value, whether there’s insurance or not, whether it’s unlimited visits, that the patient understands it. Keep in mind.

Acupuncture care works really, really well. That’s the medical necessity. But does your documentation present that? This is one of the common problems I see when I have offices I work with in dealing with when they get denials or non payments. How do we fix that? Well, demonstrate the patient made, the treatment made the patient better.

I would implore all of you, acupuncture works really well, but if you look objectively in your notes, Can you see that in an evidenced way? I’m going to recommend that you always use an outcome assessment on every single patient. Even if it’s cash, by the way. Get an outcome assessment. It demonstrates objectively how the patient is changing.

The two that I like the best are the general pain index. The other is the pain interference, the short form. The latter is the one the VA is emphasizing. If you’ve attended a seminar with me, you’ve received them. If you’re a network member, But start using things that show acupuncture works. It’s your way of putting a person on a scale and show they’ve lost weight.

Acupuncture is a phenomenal profession, but you have to make sure how do I navigate to continue to increase my patient base, which means also increasing your volume of patients by volume of income. Because ultimately, remember, you are a business provider and we’ve got to make business decisions. So I always want to be there to help you navigate that as the American Acupuncture Council does.

So until next time, my friends, I wish you the very, very best.

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Benefits of a Patient Arbitration Agreement

Benefits of a Patient Arbitration Agreement

How important is an arbitration agreement?

Arbitration is an alternative to court, where claims can be heard so when patients sign arbitration agreements, your patients agree that, if they want to bring claims against you, those claims will be heard in arbitration rather than in court.

Arbitration is more private. Instead of in an open courtroom, arbitration typically occurs at an alternative dispute center in a conference room.

Arbitration can be scheduled much sooner. This benefits you because then you do not have the stress of an open case for several years.

The case is heard by an experienced arbitrator, who understands malpractice cases, rather than a jury.

It is important to have a well-written arbitration agreement which AAC will happily provide you with.

Remember, the American Acupuncture Council (AAC) offers an unparalleled track record in acupuncture risk management.

There is a reason acupuncturists have trusted AAC with their business for 50 years.

Not an American Acupuncture Council member? Get a Quick Quote and find out how much you will save! Click here!

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What is Amygdalization? – Dr. Martha Lucas

 

 

Click here to download the transcript.

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.

Dr. Martha Lucas, today we are going to talk about amygdalizing, and I want to thank the American Acupuncture Council for giving me the opportunity to share this information with you. You can also find information on LucasTeachings. com, my teaching website. So my practice is located in Denver, Colorado, but I love to teach.

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Teaching all over and having opportunities like this to spread the word about how wonderful Chinese medicine is. So today’s topic is something that I have called amygdalizing. And so I’m going to talk to you about telling your patients to amygdalize. Now, the amygdala is a part of our brain. It’s involved in our stress response, and a friend of mine and I have been studying the amygdala for quite a while in terms of how it is related, especially to anxiety, but anxiety and depression in our patients.

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Kathleen is one of my Pulse diagnosis students from years and years ago, and we’ve kept in touch all these years about how important the proper diagnosis is to help our patients find the cause or help us find the cause of their condition, because that’s what Chinese medicine is about, right?

It’s essentially a preventive medicine, so we want to see our patients to prevent. Conditions, in other words, keep them healthy. You all know the old story about the ancient medical doctors and how you went to see them all the time to stay healthy and you paid them, but if you turned up sick, they didn’t get paid because they’re supposed to keep you healthy.

Now, in our culture, we only we might go see our doctor once a year for our annual exam, but we usually only go when we’re sick. So it is an educational thing to get your patients to understand. You need to come see me. Let’s say they start with a symptom. Come see me. We get you quote unquote cured.

We get your symptoms to go away. We get you healthy again, and then see you in a month. That’s what I tell all my patients. I need to see you twice a week for a couple of weeks, and once a week, then every 10 days, and two weeks, and then see you in a month when you’re healthy. Because I’m getting them back to the time where I can prevent their conditions.

So I love to treat emotions. Emotions are, I, in my pulse diagnosis system, we can feel the emotions in the pulse. Like worry makes the earth, spleen, stomach, pulse go backward toward the kidneys. Part of the problem with that is, number one, it’s taking away from the kidney energy in a perverse way. And number two, it’s not connecting with the lung, large intestine, metal, and earth and metal are our immune system, right?

So people are going to show up with some sort of immune or skin or hair condition, along with their worry causing this to happen. Terms of anxiety and depression, we feel depression, chronic depression, current depression in the liver pulse, the liver gallbladder pulse. And then anxiety is felt mostly in the heart, but that combination of the liver and the heart.

So I have for years been telling my patients when I feel their anxiety to what I call amygdalize. Now, why choose the amygdala as the choice of organs for them to calm down? And remember, the master said that, and I remember this from the first week of Chinese medicine school, and I Really, honestly, at that time, I thought it was a little bit of a crazy thing to say.

I’m a research psychologist by training in the Western medicine, so to say, Oh, emotions cause all physical disease made me feel like, what? Are you kidding? But as I’m feeling people’s pulses, you can feel that back and forth movement, or the scattered of the heart pulse, is eventually causing a physical symptom.

And if you want to think about it, and when we talk about the amygdala, you will know, it’s a physical disease. The amygdala is a physical organ in our body. We’re feeling the person’s anxiety and or depression, and that’s physically in their body. We’ve managed to get this idea of anxiety and depression down to a physical problem.

Now, sure, we have bacteria, viruses, that sort of thing causes physical disease, but also your patient’s emotions getting stuck. Your patient’s emotions, like if the heart pulse is scattered, blood flow isn’t going to be very good, right? This is why our fertility patients need treatment on the heart because that blood flow is going to eventually go to the uterus.

And without that connection, people are not going to be able to get pregnant very easily. So we’re going to be talking about the physical brain and how we’re going to deal with that in Chinese medicine. But it all started with this idea about that. Emotions caused all physical disease. And now of course, I’m big on treating emotions.

I love to treat emotions. I think we all need to let our patients know that Chinese acupuncture, Chinese medicine doesn’t only treat fertility and pain. I think those are two of the big topics, but we also treat the person’s emotions and their spirit. So the amygdala is a little tiny part of your brain, but it has a big function.

It’s one of the major. are the major processing center for your emotions. It also links the brain with other brain activities like memories, learning, and our senses. So that’s why sometimes when people have a panic attack, they have all of their senses seem to be involved in that. But it’s main, going to be talking about is how it can cause disruptive feelings like anxiety and depression.

It’s inside your temporal lobe. As I said, it plays a key role in emotions and memory and learning and It’s actually a little structure, but it’s part of a bigger network called the limbic system. And we all remember that the limbic system has to do with emotions. It’s part of our, very important part of our survival, because without fear in the, what I call the old days, when we were, threatened by tigers at the door and dying in childbirth more and that sort of thing.

We had to have fear, like that idea that the hair stands up on end on your arms when we’re fearful or we are worried for our own survival. If you’ve ever almost been hit by a car, you will know that your hair stands on end because you, Your survival was threatened. So these parts of the brain, including the amygdala, what we call detect danger.

But now the danger isn’t a tiger at the door. The danger is we can’t pay our bills. We’re afraid we’re not going to pass an exam. Our business has declined. Maybe we’re having a little bit of a relationship problem. Those are now the issues that really aren’t what you would call survival. They’re not really, I’m going to die because I can’t pay this bill.

I can do other things about not being able to pay that bill. But the amygdala doesn’t know that. It, all it sees is it’s, Just processing the things that we are seeing and hearing, like literally look at the bill and the amygdala goes into that feeling of, oh my gosh, I’m going to die. So we get fear, we can get aggression.

As I said, it’s a part of learning through rewards and punishment. So again, we can cognitively train it to learn this is not a survival, death threat. And then with memory, and it also is a part of social communication, which is what amygdalizing is. When I tell my patients to amygdalize, it means that they need to just express the emotion they’re feeling, express the situation to someone.

In fact, they don’t even need to. They don’t even need feedback. It’s not I need to have a conversation with somebody about this. In fact, my friend and I do emails back and forth and we’ll say, I need to amygdalize in the subject line, which means to our friend, my friend and I, you don’t have to call me back.

You don’t have to even email back. I just am having this situation. I need to express it. I’m going to say it to you or leave a message, leave a phone message. Hey, this is an amygdalization thing. phone voicemail and just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, what’s happening because we need to express that. And the masters were right about that.

I tell all my patients, your emotions are better in, sorry, your emotions are better out than in. They’re better expressed than held in. It’s the holding in that creates the stagnation and the weakness, the deficiencies or excess. Stagnation can be. either deficiency or excess, but it’s the holding in of the emotion that’s going to lead to some physical problem or anxiety and depression, which we consider emotional problems.

So they were right about that. Now, I always tell my patients, I’m not suggesting that we all become raging maniacs and road ragers. I’m just saying that you need to say it. You’ve had a bad day at work. Your boss has been a jerk. You just need to get in your car and do the, Oh my boss, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Or you’re sad about something, I’m sad about this particular thing happening. And I always tell them if you’re sad and you can cry, or you’re crying with words processes things faster than just crying with your frontal lobe and your amygdala going on and on inside this loop, right?

That’s what worry does to the pulses, as I mentioned earlier. It’s a loop between earth and the kidneys back and forth. And that’s very dangerous to our health. So what the amygdala ization does, which that’s a phrase I’ve coined, amygdalize and amygdalization, is it helps your amygdala calm down.

It helps the neurons because what the amygdala is made of is neurons and they’re sending and relaying electrical and chemical signals throughout your brain and nervous system so that you see a threat, your bill, and then these neurons start to go through your whole brain, your whole nervous system. And It’s the protective cells for those nerves don’t recognize that this is not a threat to my life.

When we start to have anxiety disorders, PTSD, any mood disorder, panic disorder, these phobias, fearful things, these are all how These are all affected or started in the amygdala. So again, we need to be always thinking about getting that out for our mental health because your amygdala can get hijacked.

If we don’t recognize that this is not a danger to my life, then those emergency signals are just going to keep going and going and going and other parts of your brain are going to react you. to that. So you might have a startle reflex. As I said, you’re going to have anxiety or depression.

It’s an emotional hijack, if you will. So what the amygdala starts in your central nervous system is this process to protect yourself, protect your body, from a dangerous situation or from danger. So again, this helps in a dangerous situation, right? If a car is coming and your ears hear it and you’re on your bike and you’re, you suddenly get a fight or flight response, that’s going to save your life.

So it’s protecting your body from danger by putting you in fight or flight. But now, as I said earlier, The fight or flight isn’t survival. The fight or flight is worried about having a fight with our partner worrying about our business, having to pay some bills, something, our child is a little sick, but we turn it into a bigger worry.

Again, we need to. Nip that in the bud. So then that’s when I tell my patients to amygdalize. I say that’s not a life threatening thing, but your body feels like it’s life threatening. So you need to not neglect your mental health. You need to realize that your physical body is your mental health.

So again, talking to a friend, you don’t need feedback. So what I tell my patients is you don’t need to. Say to a friend, Oh, I need to talk this over with you. You just need to tell him, Hey, my practitioner told me to do this thing called amygdalizing, which means I’m just going to talk about the thing.

I’m just going to repeat the thing so I can get it out of my mind, get it out in a situation where I get my brain to realize, Oh, actually this is a bill. I can do something about that. I can call the company. I can make payments. I’m not going to die. And we can calm ourselves down by doing what the master said, which is getting the emotional, getting the emotion expressed right in a healthy way, not being over angry, not, it.

Not yelling at anyone, not hurting anyone. We just get the emotion out by expressing it to someone. Or like I said I call it talking crying is a great way to get it out and process it if you’re a crier. If you’re a crier and you say the words, I miss him, I’m in your frontal lobe. Let’s say it’s that you miss someone.

Your frontal lobe just gets in that loop. I miss him. I miss him. I miss him. I miss him. I miss him. I miss him. But if You can’t say that out loud when you’re crying. You can’t possibly say, I miss him. I miss him. I miss him. I miss him. I miss him. Like it goes on in your frontal lobe. You’ll start to process it.

I miss him because he’s going to a different school now, but Hey, there are airplanes, there are cars. I can still see him. He’s growing up, whatever it is that you’re trying to process. That little bit of grief, but you need to process it. I remember my mother died suddenly and so when I went to see my doctor for my annual exam, she said I was crying because I just reported that my mother died a couple months ago or whatever, and she said, Oh, do you need some antidepressants?

I said, No, I don’t need antidepressants. My mother just dropped dead. I need to cry. is what I need. You put me on antidepressants, it’s going to make me stop crying because that’s what they’re really good at. You can feel that in the pulses. You can feel the liver energy go up to the heart and stop when a person is on antidepressants.

We of course need that energy to get over, over to the spirit, right? Over to the heart to keep the heart blood flowing and the spirit flowing well. I know for that from Chinese medicine. Now, if I wasn’t a Chinese medicine practitioner, I wouldn’t have needed that. I wouldn’t have known that. And maybe I would have said, sure, let me have some antidepressants for a while.

But we all know as practitioners, we have to get that depressed energy flowing. Get that grief, get that shock going because otherwise my kidneys were going to suffer, right? And the last thing.

When you feel the emotions in the patient’s pulses, sometimes get them to amygdalize while your hands are on the pulses. And I’ve done it plenty of times the other way. I make a joke in my pulse diagnosis class about how, you know what, you want to feel somebody’s anger pulse in the liver, talk to them about their divorce.

It’s the opposite too. I can tell them, amygdalize, get, and old childhood trauma. They’re amygdalizing in front of me about that and you can feel their earth pulse Sink down deep because this is something they’ve had in their system for a long time about not being nurtured So at any rate I wanted to introduce you to this technique I call amygdalizing able to tell your patients to amygdalize and If you have any questions, you can contact me at LucasTeachings.

com or my private practice site is AcupunctureWoman. com and I’ll be happy to answer your questions. I love to help practitioners be better at our craft because I really, after more than 25 years, I really do believe that Chinese medicine rocks. Again, I want to thank the American Acupuncture Council for this opportunity to speak with you and, as I said Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

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Acupuncture Malpractice Insurance: Compelling Reasons for Purchase


Starting an acupuncture practice is exciting, but ensuring all aspects of your business are well-covered is crucial to run your clinic smoothly. One critical item to add to your to-do list is acupuncture malpractice insurance. Here’s why it’s a must for your practice:

  • Legal Protection. We recognize acupuncture as a widely used alternative treatment, but like all healthcare professions, it carries the risk of malpractice complaints. Patients could file lawsuits alleging injury, infection, or malpractice after the treatment process. That is why malpractice insurance should be put in place to protect your practice, as it covers legal defense costs, settlements, and judgments should a case proceed.
  • Patient Compensation. Should a patient experience accidental injury, infection, or other adverse effects following treatment, acupuncture malpractice insurance can cover the financial obligations. In other words, you do not need to touch your personal or business funds to cover these expenses.
  • License Protection. A malpractice complaint can escalate to the regulatory body, potentially hanging your license in the balance. Acupuncture malpractice insurance typically includes coverage for legal representation in the event of board hearings, helping you safeguard your professional license and reputation.
  • Professional Requirement. In many states, acupuncture practitioners need malpractice insurance to maintain their licenses and certifications or to open an acupuncture business. In addition, having this coverage can also help you expand your professional network and demonstrate that you operate with the highest level of professionalism and care.
  • Clinic Protection. You can customize your malpractice insurance to include coverage for your facility. This protection can shield you from property damage due to natural disasters, fires, or other unexpected events such as fire.
  • Peace of Mind. Knowing you have acupuncture malpractice insurance, you can now focus on your patients and practice. With the right coverage, you can rest easy, confident that your business and reputation are secure against potential risks.

While running an acupuncture practice can be incredibly rewarding, it comes with its own set of challenges. Ensure you are fully protected with the right insurance to continue helping patients with care and confidence.

Are you looking for a trusted provider of acupuncture malpractice insurance? Contact the American Acupuncture Council at (800) 838-0383 for more information.