The Acupuncture Poll's question for August 2003 was:
"How long did it take you to pay off your student loans?"
Results are as follows:
These results are based upon 117 responses. As this is a voluntary, non-scientific survey, caution should be used in generalizing the results. Here is a sample of the comments made by those who took the survey and how they voted:
More than seven years: I was paying off my loan rather comfortably until the clinic I worked for had their Blue Cross/Blue Shield providership terminated because of unscrupulous billing practices. This was all done without my knowledge, but I was also held responsible. I lost my practice and have been struggling to get a cash practice going, which has been challenging. My advice is to never let anyone else do your billing for you. I learned the hard way. Now I can barely pay my monthly payment.
Also, I know new graduates who are getting out of school with $80,000 in debt. I certainly wouldn't want to be in their shoes.
Less than two years: At the time, I was so concerned about having to pay back student loans while starting a new practice that I continued working a 40+-hour high-stress job for the three years that I was in school. Hopefully, the stress I had during school counteracted the stress I didn't have paying back the loans after school.
More than seven years: I am still paying, and paying, and paying.
A student stands over a patient, needle poised. They have a “perfect” prescription: a textbook combination of points harvested from a lecture slide on chronic lower back pain. But as the needle meets the skin, the student hesitates - the symptom of a quiet habit that has taken hold of our profession. We routinely say we “prescribe” points. It sounds efficient. It echoes the authority of biomedical culture and fits neatly into the insurance field. But vocabulary is never neutral; repeated long enough, it dictates behavior.
Acupuncture can be highly effective in cases of nasal congestion so common in allergy presentations; so much so that I often treat such issues using acupuncture protocols alone. In cases of seasonal allergies with highly predictable causes such as obvious elevations of environmental allergens, I use a skeleton acupuncture prescription that can easily be fleshed out to target potential underlying patterns and effectively customized to the patient.
The field of acupuncture in the U.S. continues to grow in visibility, patient demand and clinical effectiveness. Yet behind the curtain, many acupuncturists are quietly struggling to keep their doors open. While the profession is rooted in centuries of healing tradition, modern economic pressures – particularly those driven by insurance limitations, low reimbursement rates and job-market saturation – are making it increasingly difficult for licensed acupuncturists to thrive.
