How Much Does Acupuncture Cost?
A simple question but not an easily answered one, especially if an Acupuncturist works with insurance. Acupuncturists set their fees based on location, cost of doing business, level of patient care, time spent with patient and a number of other factors. Additionally if a practitioner chooses to bill insurance directly the amount collected from a patient will vary based on an insurance plan, deductible, out of pocket max, copays, coinsurances and in-network vs out-of-network status. If you’d like to understand more about Acupuncture and insurance coverage, check out this previous blog post, Does Insurance Cover Acupuncture Treatments?
How much should one expect to pay for an Acupuncture appointment?
Though there are varying factors affecting fees for Acupuncture, each practice should have set fees for all services. Fees for all provided services should be included on a fee schedule that is posted or available upon request.
Factors Effecting Acupuncture Appointment Fees
Fees for an Acupuncture appointment can vary quite a bit. Typically an initial appointment will be higher than follow up appointments. Initial appointments usually include an intake interview, diagnostics and Acupuncture treatment. Since health improvements with Acupuncture require multiple appointments, follow up appointments related to the initial problem often have a slightly lower fee.
As mentioned above a number of factors are considered when setting fees for Acupuncture services:
Style of Practice - Are you receiving Acupuncture in a one-on-one setting or a community setting with multiple patients being treated in the same room.
One-On-One Time - Some providers will see 4 or more patients in an hour while others will see one. This impacts how much one-on-one time an Acupuncturist can provide. High-volume practices that see multiple patients simultaneously are often able to offer Acupuncture at lower prices. However this may mean there’s less opportunity for multiple sets of needles and discourse time for question and answer.
Location and Cost of Doing Business - Often locations convenient to public transportation and major roads have significantly higher real estate costs.
What Type of Acupuncture Practice Setting Is Ideal for You?
For the reasons above and others you will see a broad range of fees when you’re inquiring about Acupuncture. I recommend first consider what type of experience you want when seeking Acupuncture. For example: If you’re a private person and are seeking help with stress and anxiety, a community setting may not be best for you. If you typically prefer a practitioner spend time answering questions thoroughly a high volume practice may not be idea for you. Are you more likely to continue care if a location is convenient for you? If so, this should be factored into your price comparisons.
Once you have a sense of the experience you are looking for write down a list of questions. For instance a person seeking Acupuncture for chemo induced nausea and vomitting (CINV) that is also seeking help with stress may have a list like the following:
Is Acupuncture helpful for CINV?
Do you have experience using Acupuncture to help with CINV?
What type of results do your patients get with CINV following Acupuncture treatments?
What type of setting do you provide treatment in? Will there be other patients in the room? Is there a sound barrier or just a privacy screen?
If I have questions or concerns, during the treatment will you be able to stay in the room and answer them or will you be helping multiple patients simultaneously?
Is your location easily accessible from the subway?
Once you’ve established what type of experience you’re looking for and formulated a list of questions, now you can start call Acupuncturists. Start by getting answers to the questions on your list and then ask about fees. Having a sense of the experience along with the Acupuncture fees, you can weed out places that won’t work for you and you compare apples to apples when looking at fees. It would be unfair to compare pricing at a community Acupuncture site to a boutique Acupuncture practice. Said another way, if you know you’re comfortable with the trade offs of a higher volume setting you can compare the pricing and locations of those practice against each other and make an informed decision.
Typical Fees for an Acupuncture Appointment
In a community setting you will typically see pricing from about $25 to $75 for a follow up Acupuncture appointment. High Volume Acupuncture practices will typically have a range of $60 to $120. Boutique Acupuncture Practices that prioritize one-on-one time typically range from $100 to $200 for an Acupuncture Appointment. New patient appointments are typically one and half to two times more expensive.
Though providers are not permitted to have different fees for self-pay and insurance patients, medical providers are permitted two types of discounts, a time of service discount and a financial hardship discount.
Prompt Pay Discount
In New York State, there is no specific law regarding time of service discounts so generally it’s advisable to default to the opinion of the Office of the Inspector General. In summary a 10% to 15% time of service discount is permitted when paid the day of an Acupuncturist Treatment. Technically any payor that agrees to pay on the date of service is entitled to this fee.
Often if you’re asking about Acupuncture fees, you will be quoted the self-pay fee with the time-of-service discount. This is important to know because if you have an insurance benefit with a coinsurance responsibility, your portion will be based on the full fee, not the time of service discounted fee.
Financial Hardship
A second type of discount can be offered, this is a financial hardship discount. For an Acupuncturist to offer this, they must have the patient document their financial hardship and the Acupuncturist must maintain this documentation in the patient file.
A Word About Promotions, Coupons, Sales
From time to an Acupuncturist can run a promotion and generally as long as this is applied consistently across all patients, it’s acceptable. An example of this might be a Groupon special.
An Acupuncturist may enter under contract with an organization or insurance company to offer services at a negotiated fee. This is often referred to as in-network with a health insurance company. There are also some non-insurance networks such as the Beyond Med Network. This is a membership network that an individual or corporation may subscribe to. If a provider belongs to the network, then members will be offered special pricing.
I was once at a dinner party and I met a man who said to me, “I know you we talked on the phone. Months ago, I called and asked about your fees.” He then went on to tell me a story about how he had chosen another provider because they were cheaper. He also shared after the first appointment he didn’t see the person he had his Initial Acupuncture treatment with, he saw a less experienced provider and he got very little face to face time with practitioners. He ended the story saying, “I guess you get what you pay for.”
While it is possible for you to call all your local Acupuncturists and get their fees, compare and choose what works with your budget. Without fully understanding all the variations in practice setups and styles as they relate to your specific needs, it’s still a bit of a shot in the dark. While I don’t advocate making choices that don’t fall within your budget, I drive a Honda not a Mercedes; I do believe it’s important to ascertain where is the most value for you within your budget range when choosing any service provider.
This blog post is one in our series, Your Questions Answered. This series was inspired by the questions I’m often asked ‘on the street’ about Acupuncture and my practice. If you’ve found the information valuable, feel free to subscribe to our newsletter to get notified about future blog posts. We promise we never spam or sell our list.