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What is Community Acupuncture?

MetroWest Whole Health is one of several community acupuncture clinics opening across the country.  We are taking acupuncture back to its Asian roots and providing care in settings similar to how acupuncture is traditionally done.  The aim of this type of practice is to make acupuncture and natural health care available to the majority of the population rather than the minority who can afford the out of pocket expense of a ”spa” type treatment setting.  We believe that acupuncture doesn’t have to be expensive to work.  It doesn’t have to be done in a room by oneself to work.  In fact, acupuncture works best when people are able to commit to a course of several treatments.  Because of the lower fees and sliding scale that community acupuncturists charge, their clients are more able to make this commitment to their healing.

In our clinic we use recliners, clustered in groups in an open, quiet, soothing space. Treating patients in a community setting has many benefits: it’s easy for friends and family members to come in for treatment together; many patients find it comforting; and a collective environment is established by the group treatments making each individual’s treatments more powerful.

In the conventional style of acupuncture, needles are often removed after only a few minutes or after a half hour at most. Community style acupuncture allows patients to keep their needles in as long as they want. Most people learn after a few treatments when they feel “done”; this can take from twenty minutes to an hour! Many people fall asleep, and wake feeling refreshed. This way of practicing takes the emphasis of healing off of the practitioner and places it on our body’s abilities to heal itself once needles are placed and a person is allowed to relax in stillness and quiet.

For more information about the community acupuncture movement please visit the People’s Organization of Community Acupuncture website.

How does the sliding scale work?

Most US acupuncturists are able to see only one patient per hour and therefore charge $65 to $175 per treatment. In the community setting several people are treated simultaneously so the cost of treatment can be lowered. And it’s because of its cost, patients make the hard decision to stop coming in as often as they need to get well.

At MetroWest Whole Health -- and the other 200+ community acupuncture clinics across North America -- we use a sliding scale fee so that patients are able to afford to commit to their course of treatment, get well, and stay well.  

But we leave it up to our patients to decide what they can afford, and realize that this may even change from time to time. No proof of income is ever requested.

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