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In every medical field, there are lines of professionalism that cannot be crossed. Ethical considerations are of the utmost importance to practitioners and patients alike. One of these concerns pertains to whom the practitioner should treat. There is an old adage that it is not in the practitioner’s best interest…

Those of you who work with triathletes know their mantra: Further, faster, more efficient. Many athletes take herbs to enhance endurance (running, swimming, biking or cross-country skiing), induce muscular hypertrophy and strength (weight lifting, strength sports) or enhance overall performance.

Last year while visiting a large hospital in the Midwest, I made rounds with Michelle, a licensed acupuncturist who had hospital privileges to receive referrals by medical doctors for their inpatients to have acupuncture. While on rounds, we visited with Tamara, a 32-year-old registered nurse who was receiving daily acupuncture…

My slim, 88-year-old female patient said, “My doctors have told me that I should keep up whatever I am doing.” Joan had stopped taking Boniva, the drug prescribed for her osteoporosis when she came to our clinic more than two years earlier. Since then, she has treated herself at home…

Sometimes you have to be hit over the head a few times before you actually get it. You hear about it. You read some articles and reviews. It drifts around in the recesses of the mind. Then finally for some unknown reason you are compelled to actually dig in and…

Every time you examine and/or assess a new patient or re-examine an old one, you must think about the formulation of a diagnosis. If you are interacting with the insurance industry by billing a patient’s health insurance company or filling out a superbill for your patient to be reimbursed, you…

When a patient comes into the clinic with an acute infection, I recommend that the herbal practitioner prioritize treatment of the infection over any other complaints. Most infections that come into the clinic are viral and include sore throat, common cold, influenza, ear infection, bronchitis, herpes simplex, herpes zoster, mononucleosis,…

Q: I have begun to bill insurance for my acupuncture services. While I am being paid for the first set of needles 97810 or 97813, I am having difficulty getting reimbursed for additional sets. How do you bill for additional sets? I am billing 97810 for the first set and…

Several studies have shown the value of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies in helping patients deal with the side effects of chemotherapy for cancer. 1-7 Some of these side effects may include nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, fatigue or insomnia. Now, a recent study from Sao Paulo, Brazil, has…

Every dollar you spend is a statement about the kind of world you want. Likewise, the way you run your office is a statement of the kind of practitioner you are. If you believe helping people is important, you would be wise to look at how you treat the planet.…

Approximately 20,000 attendees from 193 countries convened on July 18-23 for the XVIII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2010). The week-long program featured 248 sessions covering scientific research, community and leadership. The 2010 theme of Rights Here, Right Now placed a central focus on the human rights protections needed to succeed…

Marketing encompasses all contact between anyone in your practice with everyone in the outside world. I suggest that your healing and marketing are closely related because your goal is to heal as many people as possible, and marketing yourself and your practice can make that possible. Let’s take a look…

Leslie

Jeffrey

You will frequently have good success in relieving localized bodily pain with microcurrents by simply “circling the dragon”; that is, stimulating where it hurts. This is usually not the case, however, in the treatment of headaches. According to the principles of Chinese medicine, headaches are often the result of imbalanced…

Eighteen boxes, seven piles, and 167 assorted objects found their way from our home to the curbside last weekend. In addition, books from three four-foot shelves were removed and taken to the University Book Give-Away Center. I selected most of the items, some of which dated back to college days,…

The federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) define cultural competency as “a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals that enables effective work in cross-cultural situations. ‘Culture’ refers to integrated patterns of human behavior that include the language, thoughts,…

East Asian medical research focuses on quantitative means of proof. This affects the information obtained, thus what become considered best practices. I maintain that the world of East Asian medicine might also be understood through qualitative means. In this article, I address the thinking behind these forms of research and…

The Snackwell Effect, Part 1 talked about how we lost our ability to regulate blood sugar by overwhelming our bodies with cereal, bread and Ho-Ho’s. I finished the article by recommending that you (or your patients) measure a few days of carbohydrate intake (not calories or fat, just grams of…

What would the pulse of aging look like? I use the term “look like” rather than “feel like” because I look at the pulses as the flow of qi through the organ systems rather than as a single or multiple of textures. Naturally I am still “feeling” it but it…