Author and Shore Health Integrative Center Founder David Mercier, LAc: What Would it Mean if Licensed Acupuncturists Were in Medicare?

Include licensed acupuncturists?

In February 2013, the licensed acupuncturists in the United States successfully generated 27,769+ signatures on a petition to the White House. The Integrator joined organizations such as the American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine and the National Certification Commission on Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in efforts to get out the vote. The goal: include their discipline as healthcare providers under the Social Security Act, thus creating access to Medicare reimbursement.

At the 11th hour, on February 10, 2013, the number squeezed over the 25,000 threshold to guarantee that someone in the Obama administration would think about the potential value of bringing acupuncturists into the fold for at least a minute.

David Mercier, LAc

The petition campaign and the Integrator promotion via an alert were not unanimously supported. Some of the oppositional views were included in the Policy section of the February 2013 Round-up. A subsequent submission arrived from author and former

"Thanks for the latest information on this petition to have acupuncture included in Medicare. As a step forward for this country and its healthcare quagmire, I think it's incredibly important and has many significant ramifications for the future of acupuncture and integrative medicine in this country. Many hospitals reimburse for only those services reimbursed by Medicare, so this would open the doors in many areas.

"My question about this has to do with the real-life scenarios that the acupuncture community is hoping to achieve with this.  Conceptually, for the reason I mentioned above, I think it's terrific. Millions of elderly patients would have access to treatment, and the status of reimbursement for acupuncture would be transformed.

A Beautiful Medicine: Mercier's recent. radical treatise

"On the other hand, virtually all of my many physician friends have been telling me for decades about their disgust with Medicare because of the complexity of the paperwork and the very low reimbursement rates. Many of them are opting out of Medicare entirely, and some are going into boutique practices to simplify their practices, to heal their Medicare headache. Many family practitioners have had trouble staying afloat financially, partly because its of low reimbursement rates.

"Has anyone done a projection as to what sorts of work, time, and reimbursement an acupuncturist might expect to encounter?  For me, it's an interesting juxtaposition of doing the right thing for patients with the willingness to take on the extra complexity that comes with being a Medicare provider.  If acupuncturists end up putting a lot of extra time into getting reimbursed at much lower rates than they're accustomed to, I'm wondering if their participation in Medicare might be limited. In my case, I'm not a participating provider with the regular insurance companies.

"I'm interested in knowing if any projections have been created for the way this will impact acupuncturists' practices and for what percentage of acupuncturists will become Medicare providers.  I believe that for larger or institutional practices with billing departments, the issue will be less of a concern than for those in solo or small group practices."