Medicare Covers Acupuncture for Chronic Low Back Pain
Acupuncture Today Staff
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has announced it will cover acupuncture treatment of chronic low back pain. According to a joint statement from the American Society of Acupuncturists and the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, "This unprecedented support of a licensure group who is not currently a part of Medicare, as well as the endorsement of our academic system, speaks to the care and trust they put in us, and the desire for Medicare beneficiaries to receive the best care possible."
CMS stipulates that it will cover up to 12 visits for LBP within a 90-day period under the following circumstances:
The pain is chronic (12 weeks or longer).
The pain is nonspecific; "it has no identifiable systemic cause"
The pain is not associated with surgery or pregnancy.
CMS will cover an additional eight acupuncture sessions if patients are shown to demonstrate improvement with treatment (20-treatment limit annually). In addition, "Treatment must be discontinued if the patient is not improving or is regressing."
CMS does not specifically list acupuncturists, but does mention "auxiliary personnel" who can provide (but not bill) treatment under appropriate supervision by a physician .. or a physician assistant / nurse who has also obtained a master's or doctoral degree from an ACAOM-accredited acupuncture institution. The ASA / NCCAOM statement explains:
"Provider types outside of Medicare are by CMS definition 'auxiliary personnel.' Auxiliary personnel must be supervised by Medicare providers. This is the maximal freedom that can be granted until the Social Security Act is amended to include LAcs, by an act of Congress. The power to do that does not lie with CMS, but with our profession."
People today want convenience, whether it be from their bank, credit card, favorite retail store, or restaurant. They demand it from the companies who hold their loyalty, including their health care providers (you). They don’t want to call and possibly be put on hold, and they want to use an app or schedule an appointment on your website. Here are three reasons your practice can gain by switching to online appointment scheduling.
While there aren’t any meridians associated with fire that cross the pelvis, that doesn’t mean the lower tan tien is void of fire. Fire has a more ethereal quality to it in relationship to the pelvis and can be connected through discussion of the lower tan tien, the lower san jjao, the ming men, and the bao mai. In this article, we’ll journey through the anatomy of subtle fire in the pelvic bowl and look a bit at how it is kindled, carried and cultivated.
In 1997, the World Health Organization and the National Institutes of Health convened a multiday conference on acupuncture to evaluate its clinical utilization and mechanisms of action. The resultant document recommended acupuncture for a wide variety of clinical issues; and also recommended acupuncture be taught in medical schools and brought into mainstream medicine.Twenty-eight years later, acupuncture is far from integrated in the way that the document portends.
