LarryG's blog

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?

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.”

“…physicians should not rely on their own excellence, neither should they strive with their whole heart for material goods. On the contrary, they should develop an attitude of good will. If they move on the right path, concealed from the eyes of their contemporaries, they will receive great happiness as a reward without asking for it. The wealth of others should not be the reason to prescribe expensive and precious drugs, and thus make the access to help more difficult and underscore one’s own merits and abilities. Such conduct has to be regarded as contrary to the teaching of magnanimity. The object is help.”
-Sun Si Miao

Please allow me to introduce myself, as this is my first ever blog on CAN. My name is Larry and I am a new practitioner out of Arizona. I was schooled back east at the Tri-State College of Acupuncture and graduated in 2007. I read "The Remedy" early in the last semester of school and felt that it addressed the bulk of my concerns as a student regarding patient accessability to acupuncture and East Asian medicine in general. On one hand I was set to graduate, having a very successful student career and enjoying the student clinic. On the other, I was casually indifferent to the whole thing and didn't exactly know why. "The boards? No, I haven't scheduled them yet?". "Business cards? Wow, you're really thinking ahead!". When I read the Remedy, I was excited for the first time since year three began, feeling a sense of purpose that had been missing up to that point.