by Bob Flaws

While it is heartening to see more and more 20 and 30 year-olds enrolled in American acupuncture schools, it's not clear to me that either Gen X or the Millenials are likewise coming on board as OM consumers. From everyone I talk to, it seems that we Baby Boomers are still the main consumers of this medicine. That bodes ill for the future viability of this profession. We need to get 20 and 30 somethings using this medicine or we will die out due to attrition.

Follow up:

Let me explain a little history for why I say this. When I started out 30 some years ago, I was essentially a penniless ex-hippie. I began my practice out of our unfurnished two-bedroom apartment. Patients laid on a mat on the floor "Japanese" style while I sat on the floor at a low desk I built. It was all so-o-o "Oriental," or so I and my patients thought. I charged $10 per treatment and saw 40-60 patients per week -- people basically my own age -- this is Boomers. I put food on my family's table and paid the rent. As my patients' earnings increased over the years, so did my practice venue and my fees. Eventually, we had a multi-practitioner clinic in a professional building, and my fees eventually hit $100 per in-take and $50 per treatment. Plus we sold lots and lots of herbs. When I quit all that 10 years or so ago, I was easily making more than $100k from my practice alone.

However, now the Boomers are coming to the end of our earning years. Even without the current recession/depression, we simply are not going to continue having the disposable income for out-of-pocket treatments like acupuncture/OM. On a fixed income, we are going to have to be much more careful about what we spend. Seventy-five, 80, or more dollars per treatment is going to become very difficult if it hasn't already.

What I'm getting at here is that my fees grew along with the earnings of my main demographic. But how is a 20 or 30 year-old going to afford these "mature" fees. These younger generations are at the bottom of the economic ladder. They're just starting out. Many have young and growing families to support. While it's my experience that these younger generations are open to using acupuncture/OM, I simply don't think most of them can afford it given the cost of treatments today. We're trying to sell people Cadillacs who can only afford Hyundais. Sure, the Cadillac may, theoretically, be worth the money, but that really doesn't matter if you don't have that money.

Further, it's bad enough to pay $80-100 per week for a single acupuncture treatment, but, for best results, acupuncture should be given once per day for acute conditions and three times per week for chronic conditions. This is what all the research from Asia shows. It's also my personal clinical experience. You simply will not get as good results doing acupuncture once per week. So now, to get the best therapeutic effects (and to protect your investment in therapy), we're not talking about $80-100 per week but $240-300 per week. Who but the very rich can afford that? Certainly not 20 and 30 year-olds.

So thinking about this, I believe it is imperative that more young practitioners adopt the community-based acupuncture model. In this model, one treats 3-5 patients (or more) in a single large room all at the same time. (Anyone who's been there knows that this is what is routinely done in China.) You may only be charging $15-20 per treatment, but, what you're "losing" per treatment, you're making up on volume. People, even young people can afford $15-20 per treatment, even if that means $45-60 per week. A movie for two costs $15. Most any book or CD costs $15. Fifteen to 20 dollars is an affordable price point, even for young people. At a treatment frequency of three times per week, most conditions will get good results in 3-6 weeks. So it's a limited investment with a high probability of therapeutic success. Even treatment two times a week is far superior than one treatment per week.

If we continue to demand that younger patients fit into and pay for a model that developed over 30 years in tandem with our target demographic's earnings, we will simply price ourselves out of business. The Boomers have been great for acupuncture till now. Now, thanks to our previous feckless leaders, even many of us don't have the disposable income anymore, and those that do soon won't because of retiring from the work force. Then we Boomers will be living on Social Security and other sources of fixed income. This is not a maybe; it is a certainty, and we, as a profession, need to wake up to these changing demographics before it is too late. If all your patients are Boomers, then you are treating an endangered species.

Just as our current administration is trying to turn our national economy around by trying new approaches, we also need to find new approaches to practice to fit these new, emerging demographics. We simply have got to make acupuncture/OM affordable to Gen X and the Millenials. Otherwise, we will price ourselves right out of business.

Copyright Blue Poppy Ent., Inc. 2009. All rights reserved.