October 1, 2017 will mark a significant day in history for the acupuncture profession, as this will be the first day Ohio Medicaid recipients will have access to covered acupuncture benefits - the first state in the Midwest to do so. While only two conditions are currently included (back pain and migraines) there is hope to increase this number in the future.
A thank you to the Ohio Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (OAAOM), the driving force behind this inclusion, is to be noted. Coverage of acupuncture will be available with or without electronic stimulations, and treatments will require a referral of a conventional practitioner who is also a Medicaid practitioner.
Other than licensed acupuncturists, the other practitioners include medical physicians, chiropractors and other "recognized acupuncture providers" who have specialty training in acupuncture, including medical doctor, chiropractors and nurses.
For more information please visit the Ohio Department of Medicaid at http://medicaid.ohio.gov/RESOURCES/LegalandContracts/Rules.aspx.
Fertility acupuncture sometimes gets presented as a narrow protocol: a handful of reproductive points applied uniformly across patients. What this case reinforced for me: The most powerful work happens when we read the whole picture. The hormone data, the constitutional tendency, the sleep, the digestion, and the menstrual pattern, so we can treat the environment the ovaries live inside.
Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) affects more than 15% of the U.S. population but evades most practitioners’ radar. Just five years ago, it wasn’t even on my radar, despite already having 20 years of experience as a clinician at that time. The more I dug (similar to leaky gut and post-COVID syndrome), the more I found my patients were suffering from this disorder.
The motivation behind our practice of medicine is important, impacting not just our experience but also the experiences of those we treat. It is perhaps for this reason that the aspiration to help not just some, but all beings heal, has historically been an important part of the medical tradition. To explain this, we need to consider how medicine is interwoven with other social domains.