Acupuncture Organizations 2015 – State of the Profession

The 40ish days between January 1st and the Lunar New Year are perfect for reviewing the past year and preparing for the next year. What worked, what didn’t? What direction will we go in when the days warm, the yang rises, and we spring forward?

There is much to consider when evaluating our practices and our profession. To understand how it all fits together we need to dive into the weeds. It’s going to take a few posts, but it will be shorter than the tax code!

Associations/Organizations/Guilds —

AAAOM (The American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine): Historically, our national professional association. And, historically may be all. The website shows no action items since 3/13/14, and no President’s blog post since 10/9/14. Is there anybody there? Is the AAAOM still alive?

ACAOM (The Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine: Graduation from ACAOM-accredited schools is a requirement in many states. 2015 ended with an announcement of a Degree Titles and Designation Project. This should be interesting – there are already graduates of and students in the existing range of programs and there are widely varying state rules. Better late than never? (Wouldn’t it be easier for the public if we were all Acupuncturists?)

ANF(Acupuncture Now Foundation): Finally, there is an international charitable organization dedicated to educating the public, other health care providers, and those who work in health care policy. For too long we’ve relied on piecemeal efforts to educate others.The ANF is just getting started and needs our support to provide a visible, accessible and positive message about who we are and what we do.

ASA(American Society of Acupuncturists): This non-profit collaboration of state associations launched in 2015. The ASA has potential, and challenges. One challenge – “six degrees of separation” between individual practitioners and the group. A planned website should help bridge the gap. Of greater concern – at the state level, the ASA defers to the preferences of the state association. If an ASA-member state association supports a law or regulation that serves its current members to the detriment of all other LAcs, too bad, so sad for the profession as a whole. There are good people involved with this group so I remain cautiously optimistic. I hope that, before too long, the member groups will see that a victory that disadvantages other Acupuncturists isn’t a win.

CCAOM (Council of College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine): The membership association for schools and colleges of AOM with ACAOM accredition or candidate status. They administer the NCCAOM required CNT course, and released an updated (available free!) CNT manual this month.

IHPC (Integrative Health Policy Consortium): The IHPC “advocates for an integrative healthcare system with equal access to the full range of health-oriented, person-centered, regulated healthcare professionals” and has been working to build enforcement of Section 2706 of the ACA to end insurer discrimination against classes of licensed health professionals working within their scope. I don’t know of any LAc that doesn’t support this group’s mission, so it is odd that many LAcs support legislation that would create this sort of discrimination.

NCASI (National Center for Acupuncture Safety and Integrity): One individual? Silent for many months now.

NCCAOM (National Commission for the Certification of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine): The NCCAOM “validates entry-level competency in the practice of AOM through professional certification.” Their vision is that AOM “provided by NCCAOM credentialed practitioners will be integral to healthcare and accessible to all members of the public.” They are powerful, organized, effective, and better funded than any other acupuncture group. They have had a major role in the path to licensure in many states. However, if you are not an NCCAOM diplomate, feel that the credentialing process is out of hand, and/or if you value traditions other than TCM, the NCCAOM is probably working against your interests.

NGAOM (The National Guild of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine): A professional medical society organized as a guild under the OPEIU, affiliated with the AFL-CIO. The NGAOM list of 13 VP’s includes the VP, Immediate Past President,Treasurer and one additional board member of the AAAOM and following in that tradition there is significant mystery around their membership and their decision-making process. They want the profession of acupuncture to be more like other health professions. Many LAcs affected by their work aren’t pleased with the consequences. You’ll learn more in upcoming posts.

POCA (The People’s Organization of Community Acupuncture): Mission — “to work cooperatively to increase accessibility to and availability of affordable group acupuncture treatments.” 708 Punk (Acupuncturist) members, 138 clinic memberships, and 1348 patient members. Minutes of meetings posted in their forums, 8 free CEU’s for practitioner members, loads of member support, and a school (POCA Tech) working towards ACAOM accreditation and currently accepting applications for the third cohort of students. This is a successful acupuncture organization.

State regulatory boards are not professional organizations or associations. Their mission is to protect the public, not promote licensees.

An exploration of acupuncture education, events in the states, legislation and regulation, and other items of interest, including more about these organizations, will be coming soon.

 

 

Copyright —

© Elaine Wolf Komarow and The Acupuncture Observer, 2013-2033. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express written permission from Elaine Wolf Komarow is prohibited. Excerpts and links are encouraged, provided that full and clear credit is given with specific direction to the original content.

8 thoughts on “Acupuncture Organizations 2015 – State of the Profession

    • I’ll be honest John, I haven’t really explored it. And I don’t know enough about the subject to identify the messes, I suspect. But I’d love to run a post if someone who does know about these things wanted to write one!

    • Wow, the 7th Edition PDF is nearly 200 pages longer than the printed 6th Edition.

  1. Thank you for the CNT manual link! Regarding acupuncture associations, does the California Acupuncture Association deserve a mention? http://www.californiaacupunctureassociation.com/ While primarily concerned with CA practitioners, they do address issues that affect us all. The CAA offers memberships to out of state LAcs, and the reason I joined was for the ICD-10 webinar they offered free to members. It was money well spent. They are active on Facebook as well, and post regularly.

    • You are very welcome! It’s clear from some of the conversations I see on Facebook and elsewhere that many Acupuncturists don’t know about the CNT manual. I hope my post helps get the word out.

      As for the CAA, I just couldn’t get to all of the state level groups. I didn’t even get to all of the national or international groups — there’s still AWB, SAR, a whole bunch of groups with primarily Chinese or Korean backgrounds…. It would be a long list.

      I did reach out to CAA with some questions a few weeks ago (via Messenger, which was the only contact I had) but never got answers. Am I correct that the CAA is not really a professional association but more of a Political Action/Lobbying group? And that, so far, the issues they are working on are primarily California specific, like rules around Worker’s Comp?

      Do you know if they have a position on the schools question and/or are doing anything to counter the efforts of the NGAOM to keep the school accreditation under the CAB rather than handing it to ACAOM?

      Thanks for including the link!

    • You are very welcome. There will be additional posts in the next few weeks which, when looked at together, should give a “big picture” of the profession.

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