March 2025 Event

Saturday, 3/22/2025, 0900-1030 Pacific time

This live event is a presentation followed by a Q&A or community discussion hosted by our Health Policy Communications Workgroup.
This event is part of the "Issues in Hospital-Based Practice" webinar series.
We are offering this live event at no cost to attendees. The live event is free. Post-event resources are not free.
If you would like to donate toward our work to help us cover our basic operating costs, you are welcome to do so, but a donation is not required to get a ticket. Tickets are at no cost to attendees. We are offering free attendance at this live event.

We cannot guarantee there will be post-event resources because of variability in tech consistency and our minimal resources for processing videos, etc. Generally, when we create post-event resources, they are available on our subscription-based learning platform.

For best access to the event, attend our live virtual event.

This is the ticketing page for our event.

Basic info about the event is on our website here: https://www.thehospitalhandbook.com/events/2025/03/22/medicare-for-healthcare-system-lacs-current-issues-barriers-lessons-learned-and-success-stories

Topic: Medicare for Healthcare System LAcs--Current Issues, Barriers, Lessons Learned, and Success Stories

Background

Medicare (CMS) had a national coverage decision (NCD) published in January 2020 to cover acupuncture (the procedures) for back pain. However, most Medicare-eligible patients were denied coverage by Medicare contractors for the first few years. This change in coverage mainly impacted the LAcs that work within healthcare systems, as they are one of the only groups able to meet the current requirements to bill Medicare.

At SOHHA, we have been hearing from and working with our healthcare system-based LAc community regarding these changes.

These 2025 presentations (Feb 22nd and March 22nd) will cover (list to be updated over time)

what current coverage is
what current known issues and barriers are
current lessons learned, solutions, or advice from the community about issues
sharing any success stories
What role does "Acupuncture for Our Seniors Act" from Rep. Judy Chu (CA) and its current bill iteration play in overcoming some of the past and current barriers (workarounds, denials, etc.)
Includes notes on documentation considerations, coding, et al, for LAcs when documenting to Medicare standard(s).

If it is free, what is required for me to attend?

You are only required to register via the ticketing platform (this page will prompt you under the "tickets" or "tickets and donations" button above) and then
Confirm your attendance on the Zoom registration page. When you follow the ticketing button, it will lead you through the prompts for this. When you complete this process, Zoom will send you a confirmation email with the link to attend the live event.

How to attend

This is a live (synchronous) event hosted on Zoom and our Mighty Networks platform.

How event ticketing for the live Saturday, 3/22/2025, works:

Choose this ticket option (free) if you are interested in this event
Go to the next prompt. Then,
You need to register directly on the private Zoom registration page. The link for this will be in your ticket receipt (receipt comes from the Givebutter platform).
On the Zoom event page, after you confirm registration, Zoom will confirm your registration by email.
Check your email for the confirmation attendance link from Zoom.
1. If you didn't receive it, here are options to troubleshoot:
  1. go back to the registration page and check the spelling on your email [it is common for emails to be mistyped by accident] and
  2. check your spam or junk folder in case it landed there.
  3. register again.

What is the donation option?

It is an option. It is not required to attend the live event. This event is by donation only. You will not be charged a ticketing price for registering or re-registering.

You are welcome to donate, but not required. The event host, SOHHA, is a 501c3 nonprofit. All donations go toward helping us offset the costs of offering this event and help us offer resources like this.

Live, synchronous event (presentation plus Q&A or community discussion)-->This event is a live virtual event hosted on Zoom.

What is the asynchronous discussion option?

SOHHA hosts asynchronous discussion space on this topic in our online community platform for a few years. Access to this asynchronous space is optional. You do not need to join that space to attend this event. However, if you want to join that space, you are welcome to, just send us a message with your interest. If you are already a community discussion platform subscriber, just send Megan a message in the platform about your interest.

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February 2025 Event--live event has ended.

Please see notes below for info on post-event materials.

Topic: Medicare for Healthcare System LAcs--Current Issues, Barriers, Lessons Learned, and Success Stories

Saturday, 2/22/2025, 0930-1100 Pacific time

The live virtual event has ended.

This live event was a presentation followed by a Q&A or community discussion hosted by our Health Policy Communications Workgroup.
This event is part of the "Issues in Hospital-Based Practice" webinar series.
The live event was offered at no cost to attendees.
Post-event resources take time and financial resources to create and host. If we are able to create them, we host them on our community learning platform, which is subscription-based. If this is something you are interested in, learn more here: https://community.thehospitalhandbook.com/

If you are already on our community learning platform, go here to access asynchronous and synchronous resources for this event and its wider topic:

Internal event page for 3/22/2025

Medicare for Healthcare System-Based LAcs and Acupunture/Integrative Health Programs, our topic-based learning & community discussion space (mostly asynchronous)

Who We Are

We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization focused on education and information for the healthcare system-based acupuncture community. With the goal of improving patient access to acupuncturists' care where they already receive care. Many people in the U.S. receive healthcare from their local clinics and healthcare system.

Currently, there are several barriers to patients getting access to acupuncturists' care in their local U.S.-based healthcare facilities. We can help with some of these barriers through resources that are part of our collaborative learning and community discussion platform.

We have educational/informational resources tailored for

students and acupuncturist clinicians interested in working in healthcare system-based practice
clinicians currently working in healthcare system-based practice
program managers who work with licensed acupuncturists in the healthcare system setting

Healthcare system-based practice is an option for licensed acupuncturists. Let's grow and improve this option for prospective and future practitioners (current students). Our nonprofit helps communicate what the best practices for this setting are. This includes hiring and credentialing LAcs, professional practice evaluation specific to LAcs, program standards, clinical metrics, and KSAs for general practice and specialty practice settings.

Working in the established healthcare system means patients can access care where they already receive care. This improves patient's access to our services, which include acupuncture, meditation & movement therapy (tai chi and qi gong), massage and bodywork (tuina, medical massage, cupping, gua sha, acupressure), patient education, and more (see state scope of practice and delineation of clinical privileges for details).

At SOHHA, we have worked with the nonprofit program (HHP) to support the structure and continue building out resources for its collaborative learning platform.

The collaborative learning structure has an asynchronous discussion platform to run synchronous virtual events, presentations, and group discussions. We host workgroups and committees. All workgroups have a goal of at least one publication or public presentation about their topic-based resource work per year.

2023-2025 topic-based workgroups

Inpatient Acupuncture workgroup (Jan 2023 big event + resource work)
Safety Practices for Acupuncturists, Safety Leads, and Program Managers working in healthcare system-based practice
Employment Practices for Healthcare System-Based Acupuncturists Workgroup (resources for clinicians and managers)
Health Policy Communications Workgroup

Learn more about current programs and projects at this free PDF download on our website: https://www.thehospitalhandbook.com/support-the-project/interested-in-sponsoring-the-hhp

Medicare for Healthcare System LAcs--Current Issues, Barriers, Lessons Learned, and Success Stories

Team Members