Community Acupuncture Clinics Acupuncture has been a community based medicine for most of its long history. The group setting for acupuncture treatments has been the preferred setting in Asia. Why? For acupuncture to be effective, treatment need be done frequently and regularly – for which most health insurance plans do not pay or, if they do, they pay far too little. The group setting promotes affordability of acupuncture as an everyday treatment. Despite health insurers not paying for acupuncture services, the number of general practitioners that refer their patients to acupuncturists for treatment of specific conditions is growing. It was when acupuncture was introduced to the West that the private consultation room, one-on-one treatment setting became the norm. However, this served to decrease both patient accessibility and treatment efficacy. In the community setting the … Read entire article »