Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) of Massachusetts, one of the most progressive state insurers in the nation when it comes to offering non-drug alternatives, has announced it will provide acupuncture coverage beginning Jan. 1, 2020. Eligible BCBS of Mass. members will be able to access acupuncture services for up to 12 visits per calendar year, and referrals are not required. The co-pay will be the same as an outpatient office visit with a specialist.
"We want our mem-bers to have access to a broad range of safe, effective treatments for pain management," commented Andrew Dreyfus, the president and chief executive officer of BCBS of Massachusetts, in a press release from the insurer announcing the coverage change. "We know our members and employer customers are increasingly seeking alternative treatments like acupuncture, both for chronic conditions and overall wellness."
"We are constantly looking at creative, non-opioid approaches to treating pain," added Ken Duckworth, MD, BCBS of Massachusetts' medical director for behavioral health. "We know many people find acupuncture to be beneficial for a number of conditions, so we're pleased to offer it as an option to our members. This could also be another step in helping to reduce the number of inappropriate opioid prescriptions being written in Massachusetts."
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
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One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
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