No.

I want to prioritize my relationship with you, not with an insurance company.

Accepting insurance means the insurance provider will dictate the type and duration of care you receive. I think you ought to be the one to decide what kind of care you need and how long you need that care for.

It can also create confidentiality concerns for some individuals, as insurance companies have access to chart notes which contain private and sensitive information about your health and lifestyle.

Lastly, accepting insurance would require me to see more patients than I have the capacity to support. Paying me directly allows me to focus on providing the best care I can without burning out.

If you’d like to independently pursue reimbursement for our sessions with your insurer, my billing service automatically generates and emails you a detailed invoice (including CPT and, where applicable, ICD codes) after every session which is sufficient for insurance plans with out-of-network benefits.

Want to know about reimbursement before we work together? Ask your insurance company if any of these codes are covered: 97810, 97811, 97124, 97140, 97110.

Yes. I offer pay-what-you-can sessions ($80–120 per hour) as possible. If you would like to work together at a sliding scale rate, please email me with the rate that is possible for you.

I center consent and offer choice in all my sessions.

Like all licensed acupuncturists, I am extensively trained in safe needling practices and clean needle technique.

I use sterile, single-use needles and sanitize my table and working surface between every session. I disinfect all tools after every use. I send my laundry out for professional cleaning.

Current health standards do not require providers to alcohol swab sites before needling, except on the head, and I can swab points if that is your preference.

I have a HEPA air filter running in my room at all times.

I wear a mask when I’ve had recent exposure to illness or when working with immune compromised patients. I invite you to mask if you have recently been sick. Otherwise, I will follow your preference around masking.

East Asian medicine (EAM) is a complete medical system which has been in contiguous use for thousands of years. It offers a complementary yet distinct model of health and illness to biomedicine, the dominant medical paradigm.

EAM views our anatomical systems differently than biomedicine and has different but not incompatible ideas about the relationships between systems and how disease happens and progresses. You could think of it as a different kind of map describing the same world we know.

There doesn’t need to be something “wrong” with you for us to work together. Likewise, there is nobody who is “too broken” to benefit from acupuncture, herbal medicine, and East Asian medical theory.

Biomedicine generally seeks to return “ill” bodies to a set point of health, a “before” state of integrity. In this way, it is concerned with diagnosis and controlled outcomes. It deals primarily with morphological issues: if the chief complaint can be captured in a lab, imaging, or exam, there are treatment options. This medicine saves lives, and I’m intensely grateful for it’s ability to respond to extensive systemic or deep local damage.

In contrast, EAM organizes around patterns and change. It emerges from a physiological and philosophical view that mind and body are inextricably related expressions of being adapting to our constantly changing natural world. As such it deals primarily with functional attunement.

Acupuncture and Chinese-style herbal medicine are the clinical interventions of East Asian medicine. They seek to regulate the body’s ability to respond in the moment. In this tradition, a healthy body is a body able to shift with the seasons, a body which can reasonably recover from harm (while having been changed by it), and one which processes experience with ease rather than dis-ease.

These tools can be incredibly effective at treating what biomedicine would consider “sub-clinical” conditions: issues that are symptomatic but have not yet caused tissue change. It also offers relief from compounding symptoms in those with more progressed concerns.

East Asian medicine is not a substitute for biomedicine.
It is a different approach which can offer support in different ways.

According to the World Health Organization, acupuncture can alleviate symptoms of the following concerns:

Orthopedic
Arthritis
Back Pain
Neck Pain
Knee Pain
Frozen shoulder
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Fibromyalgia
Muscle Pain
Muscle Weakness
Muscle Cramping
Sciatica
Post-Operative Pain

Digestive
Abdominal Pain
Constipation
Diarrhea
Indigestion
Ulcers
Gastritis

Emotional
Anxiety
Depression
Insomnia
Nervousness
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Reproductive
Premenstrual Syndrome
Amenorrhea
Dysmenorrhea
Menopausal Symptoms
Infertility
Sexual Dysfunction

Respiratory
Asthma
Bronchitis
Common cold
Sinusitis
Smoking cessation
Tonsillitis
Tinnitus
Toothache

Neurological
Headaches
Migraines
Parkinson’s Disease
Stroke Sequela
Peripheral Neuropathies

Other Concerns
Substance dependency
Blood pressure regulation
Prostatitis
Incontinence
Chronic Fatigue
Immune System regulation
Stress Reduction

Most often, no.

I hope to insert needles as painlessly as possible. There is also sensation associated with needling. How this feels varies from person to person. I have heard it described as everything from surprising, to painful, to weird, to tingling. Many folks don’t feel the needles at all.

After insertion, the site of needling can feel heavy or achey. This is a good sign in treatment, it means we’ve accessed resource in the body.

If we are retaining needles for a time, you might feel shifts in sensation in your body while you rest. This may include small swells of discomfort followed by relief or settling.

That said, needles should be generally easy. If you ever experience persistent sharp, burning pain on needle insertion or during retention, let me know. This means the needle needs to be adjusted.

If you’re concerned about the potential pain of needles or afraid of needles please communicate this with me during intake. We can do low or no needle sessions while still utilizing the theory of East Asian medicine to your benefit.

There are many proposed mechanisms for how acupuncture works from a biomedical perspective. Here are a few particularly compelling theories:

Neurotransmitter Release: The insertion of acupuncture needles stimulates nerve endings, sending signals to the brain to release certain neurotransmitters. These neurotransmitters can have pain-relieving or anti-inflammatory effects.

Endorphin Release: Acupuncture triggers the release of endorphins, which are natural painkillers produced by the body. Endorphins can help reduce pain and induce a sense of well-being.

Modulation of Neural Pathways: Acupuncture may effect the way the nervous system processes and transmits signals, which influences the perception of pain and regulate various physiological functions.

Blood Flow and Circulation: Acupuncture promotes blood circulation in the targeted areas. Improved blood flow can enhance the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to tissues, facilitating the body's natural healing processes.

Connective Tissue Stimulation: Acupuncture needles stimulate the connective tissue, influencing cellular and biochemical processes. This can contribute to the regulation of inflammation and the promotion of tissue repair.

If you want to understand more about how acupuncture works from the perspective of East Asian medicine, I’d recommend you just come try it for yourself: ultimately experiencing this kind of care over time is the best way to understand it’s theory.

Somatics as an interdisciplinary field of study is concerned with how we articulate the felt experience of the body, what it means to sense, and how we correlate sensation with interpretation. 

As an intentional form of care, somatic support focuses on helping people notice the body's internal sensations, perceptions, and experiences. It cultivates this awareness through through dialog, movement, meditation, and touch.

Somatic support can help you learn to listen to your body and notice habitual patterns of response. Greater connection to our bodies helps us to with act and react in alignment with our values and desires.

A few examples of specific somatic practices are body scanning, intentional breath-work, tapping, dancing, or stretching. 

My somatic work is particularly informed by parts work, also known as Internal Family Systems (IFS) theory.

IFS organizes around the idea that we naturally contain multitudes: there are many parts of our selves, and we also each have central self who cannot be harmed or damaged. This self knows how to guide and care for all the parts within us.

Parts work offers us awareness of our inner and outer worlds. As we get to know our self, we’re able to understand and support troubled parts of our system. 

This creates even more internal space for presence, which often translates to greater embodied authenticity in how we move in and relate to our external world and relationships.

Somatic sessions with me are largely focused on discovering an embodied sense of self and examining the relationships between physical sensations and your interpretation of experience.

YES!

If you are a fellow care provider of any variety and you want to discuss our shared or distinct disciplines or referrals I would love to connect.

Reach out however feels clever: email, text, social media!