As part of its ongoing effort to provide better health care to the residents of the San Diego area, Pacific College of Oriental Medicine has announced it will open two new clinics - one in may, the other in June.
The first clinic opened earlier this month, with its first clinic shift beginning Friday, May 7. The clinic will involve students enrolled in the college's DAOM (Doctoral in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine) program, and will offer an integrative approach utilizing the supervision of a biomedicine practitioner; a licensed acupuncturist with experience in integrative medicine; and a licensed acupuncturist experienced in the Chinese classical texts and diagnoses.
Because the doctoral clinic will be using advanced equipment, and because the care will be provided by a more experienced group of practitioners, PCOM officials estimate that the clinic will charge $60 per treatment, which is slightly higher than the fees at PCOM's master's clinic, but still less than the average cost of a private practitioner.
The second clinic, set to begin seeing patients in June, is designed to increase clinic experience for PCOM's master's students while making acupuncture more available to the community. At the second clinic, treatments will be conducted in a group setting, and will focus on specific disorders such as back pain, headache and asthma. Students will conduct abbreviated, 20-minute treatment protocols, allowing them to learn to assess a patient's needs quickly and accurately.
The clinic will be available to local businesses, employees of local companies, and people with limited health resources available. The estimated cost of treatment at the community clinic will be $15 - significantly less than what is charged at PCOM's other two clinics.
For more information about PCOM's new clinics, call (800) 729-0941.
Governor Gavin Newsom has retracted the proposed budget cuts to the Medi-Cal acupuncture program for low-income Californians for the 2024-2025 budget year. This decision marks a significant victory for health care providers and advocates who have long championed acupuncture as a vital component of comprehensive medical care.
There’s no doubt that many of your patients visit your practice because they are in pain. And there’s certainly no doubt that curcumin from turmeric (Curcuma longa) can be incredibly effective in stopping that pain, whether due to chronic conditions like arthritis or acute pain from intensive workouts. But your patients may also benefit from curcumin for other reasons.
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Fair and appropriate wages in health care are typically based on economic evaluations. A simple literature review illuminates that acupuncture is missing economic evaluations; which implies you are either underpaid or overpaid. The complexity of services provided by most American acupuncturists, which they are trained and certified to provide, must be reimbursed fairly.
