How much do you charge for an acupuncture session?

Your first encounter will be a medical evaluation by our specialist who will develop a treatment plan which may or may not include acupuncture. This encounter should be covered by your health insurance company with some restrictions depending on your plan such as a need for a health care provider referral.

Follow up 50 minute acupuncture sessions have a cost of 70 dollars each. These are not covered by your health insurance. We are constantly having promotional rates. Ask us about current sales and packages. 

Protocol based, needle free, ear acupuncture visits for weight loss, smoking cessation, substance abuse or anxiety with acu-magnets, have a cost of 30 dollars each. This lower cost accounts for a more frequent need and typically takes 10 minutes to apply. These treatments are already covered, when needed, in the 50 minute acupuncture sessions. 

If you do not have health insurance, the cost of the first 50 minute acupuncture session is 120 dollars. Depending on the condition to be treated, (does not apply to chronic pain disorders, weight loss or substance abuse) we could require you to have a medical evaluation by a different provider within six months before the acupuncture treatment. In this scenario, the visit does not include a medical evaluation. 

For patients without health insurance we do not offer medical treatment beyond acupuncture and behavioral modification such as nutritional recommendations, stress management among others. 

I already had acupuncture and it did not help me, why should I try again with another provider?

Medical Acupuncture is just like any other medical treatment in which there is a science and an art to it and it is operator dependent. A correct diagnosis is essential for treatment response. There are several ways to diagnose in Traditional Chinese Medicine and based on studies there is a high variability on the TCM diagnosis between expert providers on the same patient. Are they all wrong? Let’s use a western medicine example. A patient who has high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes is not responding optimally to the antihypertensive, the cholesterol lowering pill and the insulin prescribed by the cardiologist and the endocrinologist respectively. This patient then goes to the family doctor and the doctor explains what metabolic syndrome is and how being overweight and having a sedentary lifestyle influences the 3 conditions. After a diet and exercise regimen, the patient starts to respond to the treatments. Were the specialists diagnoses wrong? This is an overly simplistic example of how focusing on the root of the problem is essential and also in the same overly simplistic way it attempts to explain how experts can have a correct diagnoses and proper treatment but yielding limited results.

How many acupuncture sessions are needed to obtain benefits from this therapy?

This question has a complicated answer due to the several levels of response to acupuncture. The easy answer is that we want you to leave after the first treatment realizing that acupuncture can help your body heal. The complexity starts when trying to answer the question of how many treatments you will need to obtain long lasting results and if there will be a need for maintenance therapy.

The simplistic response is, the longer the condition has affected you, the more time it will take to treat it. Then again, since we want to treat the root of the problem, as well as the symptoms, this adds another layer of complexity. As an example, perhaps you recently developed generalized joint pain. Therefore, since it recently started it will be easy to treat? May be! Only if the source of, let’s call it inflammation, has recently started then yes. Unfortunately the root of the problem sometimes has been there for a much longer time. Take the example of diabetes. According to this article by the American diabetes association, the onset of non-insulin dependent diabetes occurs on average 4 to 7 years before the actual diagnosis is made.

But, to be practical, we want to see progressive changes in the first 5 sessions. If there are no changes during this time, then this mode of therapy is unlikely to yield long term results with continuous treatment by us.