The State of Acupuncture Laws in Michigan

As many of you now know, there will be a public hearing in Lansing on Monday about the proposed requirements for registering as an acupuncturist in Michigan. I’ve been encouraging people to send their input. Some folks have wanted more background information, so the following is what I understand to be true (please feel free to chime in in the comments, if you have different information):

In 2006, a state bill was passed to provide for the registration of acupuncturists in Michigan. Before that, the law pretty much stated that in order to practice acupuncture, you should be an MD or an osteopath. Legal interpretation of that “should” has been that acupuncturists should be supervised by an MD or DO, and/or that acupuncture treatment requires a referral from an MD or DO. (I’m still looking for a good link to this information.)

When the bill was passed in 2006, a Board was formed and charged with the task of deciding what the requirements for registration would be. Until those requirements have been agreed upon, there is no actual registration. (For more information about that, read this.)

As far as I can tell, acupuncturists (who are not also MDs or DOs) are in a kind of “extralegal” zone right now. Apparently things have been happening behind the scenes (there is a state association of acupuncturists that has been paying for a lobbyist in Lansing and doing other organizing) – but what exactly has been happening, I don’t know, as it looks like they are debating the same questions that were at issue in 2006. The Board has cancelled every meeting they had scheduled for this year. In the meantime, I got the letter about the Public Hearing in the mail last week.

As of this morning, over 120 people (mostly patients of the Community Acupuncture clinics in Michigan) have sent emails in advance of the public hearing! Please feel free to forward the link to the email campaign widely. I will update folks on this blog when I hear any news.