Doctors routinely use drastic measure like surgeries and medications for what acupuncturists can easily treat. All medications have side effects, and many surgeries do not have the anticipated outcome. Medical approaches to pain turn prescriptions into subscriptions with no end date. Both of these disruptive approaches lead to medical and pharmaceutical cascades such as polypharmacy and additional procedures or operations.
Doctors must begin to refer patients with non-emergency problems to Licensed Traditional Chinese Medicine/East Asian Medicine providers for acupuncture, guasha, moxibustion, cupping, blood-letting, tuina, herbal and diet therapies, et cetera. This will be a huge improvement in the outcomes for patients as well as the costs for insurers and a huge boon for the wellness of the population as a whole. Problems treated by TCM are not limited to pain, other internal and external conditions also apply, including but not limited to:
- arthritis
- arthralgia
- ear infections
- diarrhea
- constipation
- nausea
- back pain
- frozen shoulder
- plantar fasciitis
- bone spurs
- infertility
- PCOS
- vertigo
- dysmenorrhea
- depression/anxiety
- GERD
- diabetic neuropathy
- asthma
- et cetera
Once this is recommended by HHS, NIH and reimbursed by medicare and medicaid and deemed “Best Practice”, doctors will be liable for NOT recommending and referring patients first and foremost before using pharmaceuticals or irreversible medical procedures.