June, 2008

I recently had the opportunity to do a presentation/demonstration at a doctor’s office here in Portland. I really enjoying doing these types of presentations. This is a private practice of about 12 doctors. Doctors have such hectic schedules that the easiest way to get a few minutes of their time is to take them to lunch….or in this case, bring them pizza. Doctors are very familiar with the pharmaceutical representatives coming to see them with the latest and greatest. Pharmaceutical reps bring them stuff; this is the western model. Happily we have all utilized the community model that WCA created, why not use other existing models out there?

The power of the sliding scale is its ability to provide an inlet for working and middle class people to experience acupuncture. A $15-35 or $40 sliding scale is a strong motivator for people to try something they have no experience with. Couple this with a recommendation from a trusted friend or family member and you have a new patient. Often times, however, I am asked how I know that people aren’t taking advantage of the sliding scale and paying at the low end when they could afford to pay higher up. Wouldn’t it make sense to perform some form of income verification or means testing to assure that I am being properly compensated?

 

To me perhaps the best thing that the science of physics has ever done is come up with are the laws of Thermodynamics, especially the 2nd law. That 2nd law is the one which states that entropy increases over time. Basically that means that a) systems move from a high energy state to a lower one; chaos increases. There are a lot of implications of the 2nd law but time and again it is found to be operative in all systems. Evolution follows the 2nd law; so does quantum mechanics.

Last week was a very  hard week for me. As you know, we're in the middle of 800 wildfires in surrounding areas.  I don't know how the others in this area are doing, but I'm just thankful that my clinic is air-conditioned, as the air quality here has been astoundingly bad.  Having had childhood issues with my lungs, and having just returned from 2 weeks of heavy hay fever reaction to the green and flowering beauty of Austria, I unsuspectingly got swept up in the general reaction to this air.

Chalk this up as yet another lesson from the never-ending “Let Your Community Help Build Your Community Acupuncture Clinic” lecture we've heard so often on CAN.

Having been impressed by acupuncture in general and happy with her experience at her local community acupuncture clinic up here in Manchester, Coleen – a community access TV manager – asked if I would be willing to be interviewed on camera to talk acupuncture/community acupuncture.

The answer was 'yes, of course'.

Thanks to her and her colleague's enthusiasm and talents, the following ½ hour program was filmed, produced and edited for the purpose of spreading the word of acupuncture and CA around The Queen City and surrounding towns.

Check this out! A balanced, affirming, friendly article about community acupuncture in Portland from a mainstream source:

http://www.livepdx.com/Articles/Portland-Health-Beauty/?launch_pg=Aritcl...

 

I think we're making progress.

It has been challenging to reach the people I am trying to serve—average middle class people of Michigan; the group I think I am a part of. The majority don’t seem to know anything about acupuncture except that it involves needles. When I meet people for the first time and tell them what I do, it’s obvious that acupuncture seems really weird and out-there to them. Many simply can’t believe it will work. Sometimes they become even more puzzled and skeptical when I try to answer their questions about how it works. I used to get this response occasionally when I lived out east, but out here in the midwest (Michigan), it seems commonplace. I have noticed more open mindedness with people who are better educated as well as with people who lean

I stumbled across an article in Ode magazine, about a former acupuncturist (Denise Cerreta) who got "fed-up" with her acu-business and in 2003 created a restaurant with a mission to feed the hungry in her community.  Denise serves healthy, organic foods in a beautiful setting, and she tells her customers  to "pay what they can afford"...if they don't have money, they can work in the kitchen to pay-off their bill.

Isn't it interesting that this cafe and WCA were developing at the same time?

Here in Fredrerick county, there is a chiropractor and yoga instructor who offer their services on a "pay what you can afford" basis with wooden boxes in their entry-ways.

During the last few months I have been absent from the CAN, my attention focused on home renovations.  We recently purchased a lovely old soul of a home, built in 1911.  We spent several weeks peeling away the layers of carpets, linoleum and wallpaper to reveal the history of care and craft lying beneath.  In the process I began to think about the nature of time and how we have distorted its value – always equating progress with things that take less time.   

This obsession with speed seems to permeate all aspects of our lives, and it seems to me that we have lost a lot in the bargain.  There is an innate sense of joy and pleasure whenever I take the time to create a beautiful meal, restore a wooden floor, play music, or even write a blog!  And that brings me to the subject of community acupuncture.

It took me about 5 months to get around to finishing it, and you are the ones  I present this to as my humble offering.

BANANA STORY

 

Dan Clements of the Alternative Health Practice Blog sent me an email saying that he had put up a post titled "7 Ways to Make Peace with Your Fees" in response to the dialogue that Burton Kent and I had. I like Dan and his writing, so I went and checked it out, and then it got me thinking. And I'm wondering what you all would think. Note: this is an acrimony-free conversation so far, and I'm pretty sure it will stay that way -- so all of you who are tired of fee- related acrimony need not fear.

http://alternativehealthpractice.com/2008/06/7-ways-to-make-peace-with-y...

This afternoon, my business partner Keith and I went to Gersons looking for a door handle for our clinics bathroom. Gersons is located in South Tucson in the industrial district and salvages used furniture, building materials and other various items that can be purchased for a fair price. The materials there are old, but functional, rescued from a premature burial in some landfill graveyard. As one worker quipped to us, as we strolled across the vast, dusty outdoor warehouse, “You never know what you’ll find here.”

After congratulating a Boston CANer and her city's Celtics, I got to thinking about the team spirit shown by the Celtics all season and the similarities with the community spirit of CA practices and CAN.

Many CA practices are partnerships, which involve working as a team and being able to compromise. CAs with volunteers are indispensable in helping run the office.                    

The Celtics Big 3 sacrificed individual stats for a higher goal -- the championship. Passing the ball and assists, the mindset to play tough defense (which takes a lot of concentration and is hard work) and help each other out in providing coverage, were essential factors in their wins. Their bench players provided needed points and consistency in defense.

Like at least one other CAN member, we are experiencing a bit of a slow down here at CommuniChi also. April we had 378 appointments - an all time high for us in 15 months of being open. May we were down to 300. This month, we are on pace for 250 to 300.

It would be easy to follow the conditioned mind that can only accept life when it is following "MY plan", but as someone mentioned, running on the hampster wheel, trying to figure out "what's wrong" is a pretty cramped headspace to be in. I prefer to simply show up to life and keep looking at what is right and putting all my energy there.

The July/August issue has a lovely picture of Ellen and Philadelphia Community Acupuncture! Congratulations again to Pam Chang for her fabulous article, reprinted for an even wider audience!  Seriously, everyone -- if you're having any trouble at all explaining what you're doing and why you're doing it, Pam's article plus the photo of PCA is the answer to your prayers. www.utne.com

I haven't blogged in a while...so much has happened in my life, so here's the update.  We had our baby at home on May 23rd at 11:16 pm.  A baby boy, 8 lbs 13 oz, 20 inches long.  His name is Kierdin.  So, needless to say, I have been a little preoccupied adjusting to parenthood.  

Gene & I also are moving our clinic (Inner Source CA, Bradenton, FL) to Sarasota, FL this month.  We are joining forces with some colleagues and forming a new business (Sarasota Community Acupuncture).  We are hoping it will give us more flexibility as parents for shifts and it will cut costs a little.  Also, more flexibility for patients with 4 practitioners.  Our business did okay in Bradenton, but we feel we will do better in Sarasota.  It's bigger and has a little more going on.

So I will give updates and photos as they come..gotta run as I am now a full time milk maker!!  

OK, so things have slowed way down the past 3 weeks... how much slower? Say, 30-40%.  I know acupuncture busy-ness can be a cyclical thing, especially in a beach/summer community like ours, but I had expected a boost as we moved into summer, not a cut back.  Combining this with the very high cost of gas is leading to the departure of one of our team --  Antonio.  He is a great acupuncturist, and our staff and patients love his gentle, "straight from the heart" manner.  For seven months he has been driving 160 miles round trip to treat in our clinic.  It has been a gift to have him, and you new CA clinics that are closer to Boston are lucky he will soon have a little free time on his hands, though not for long, I am sure.

Spending a week staying in a log cabin on Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin brought me back to nature, simplicity, music and grounding. 

Impressions:  wind through the white pines and the swaying of the tree in the wind; wind through the poplars – fluttering and twinkling the leaves; the sun dancing in the water like stars in the depths; songs of many small birds – their flittering from tree to tree.  One stops to listen to me play the Native American flute.  Raptors soaring on the air currents.  Sea gulls.  A doe and her fawn early one morning.  Bees.  Mist in the morning obscuring the lake and leaving a droplet-filled spider web outlined in the pine. 

Once upon a recliner, an idea was hatching - unheard of as yet.
Maybe it was at home, at work or with Skip in the OCOM broom closet.

But with an old print shop and her “heart, head and hands”,
She opened the doors, like Rosie, saying “Yes we can!”

Window of the Sky was born out of a post-public-health mist,
Out of a dream, no money and a German receptionist.

From 12 to 30 to 50 patients she grew, and the team of revolutionaries around her grew too.

A bakery takeover with a HUGE red fist and some recycled paint,
Months of meetings to determine a non-profit we ain’t.

Working Class Acupuncture, now a PC
And, Lisa, labeled, militant and incendiary

More patients, staff, national trainings and the birth of CAN
From these white trash roots, a healthcare Revolution began

I set out to write a blog about loving my working class job, liking how the hard physical

work of doing CA connects me to more people, to my family, and to my own body, and just

to work itself. I will WORK on that entry. But, in starting that, I ended up writing something

that probably should be its own entry. Here it is.

This past Saturday my new community acupuncture clinic, Acupuncture Together of Cambridge, had its grand opening event with free acupuncture from 11 am – 4 pm, and it was truly grand, indeed. After spreading the word by inviting nearly every person I know via email, contacting nearly every possible free publication in the Boston area asking it to list my event and using internet sites announcing it as well, I gladly received an overwhelming response, way beyond my expectations. Apparently the press found it a novelty worth including in their event listings, and my effort at seeking them all out was worth it as well. I treated 51 people in 5.5 hours!!!

Basically in every arena of thought we have andexpress, is a reflection of who we are, and how we came to be that person.  So whether it’s politics, oracupuncture, or cookbooks, or gardening, or healthcare, it all connects and it all communicates subtly things about us and our beliefs.  This relativist point of view that has been talked about alot lately—you know that no one is wrong, just have a different POV,experience, etc. is to me relatively true.  To say that Hitler and the Dalai Lama just have different POV and they are both valid, doesn’t ring true to me.  Nonetheless, part of what makes talking about our differences so difficult, is that we all have a different experience, wethink.  You know how we keep hearing that we are more alike than different?  Wouldn’t we all like to think this is true?  It’s one of those infinite circlemobius strips that someone referred to here.  What’s also hard about talking about –isms, is looking honestly at our own.

Austria has no separate acupuncture profession, as the only people legally allowed to poke people are MDs. Period. I know nothing about their training, but one lady I treated (in Millstatt, south Austria, deep in the country) said that years ago she had been acupunctured by a doc who did local points for her neck. It didn’t help her, she said. One treatment with me using only hand points on one side, and she became an addict. She wanted to return the next day. We had been waking for in this beautiful farmhouse, eating less than day-old eggs and grass-fed milk for breakfast, touring the town’s monasteries and chapels afterwards, then spending the afternoon swimming and sunbathing at the town nude beach. Oh yes, and in the evenings the cuckoo calling from the woods. Ahhhh. But back to the acupuncture. She could only come twice, but this experience convinced her that she didn’t need to bow to medical exhortations to use surgery for relief.

Last night at work I had one of those lovely moments of gratitude and fulfillment -- courtesy, of course, of a patient.  Bethany has been seeing me since early 2005; she just graduated from law school, so she's been dealing with all the different kinds of stress associated with that (physical, mental, etc.) for the last few years.  Acupuncture has worked really well for her.  When her stepmother and her little sister came to visit her last year, she brought them in to WCA too.  They live in Ashland; her stepmother was having some acute pain that really required a series of treatments right in a row, more than I could give in her brief visit to Portland, so I was very happy to be able to refer her to People's Choice Community Acupuncture in Ashland. "Go see Chad as soon as you get back home!" I suggested -- and she did!  

Hospital closures are no longer limited to New Orleans:

New York Times story. 

This story reminds me of my trip to an emergency room at UCLA Hospital in 1989. An elderly wanderer friend without health insurance was in need of urgent care. It was a 12 hour wait before he was finally seen.