SoluHealUpdate: MassHealth and Acupuncture
— UPDATE – April 24, 2015: Please see my new post on how to be covered with MassHealth. —
After working with some MassHealth or MassHealth subsidized health insurance clients, here are my findings.
Both MassHealth and the insurance company makes it very difficult for anyone to get covered for acupuncture treatment, or at least for private clinic setting. Medical Doctor’s supervising is required for the policy. Hence, the current policy only benefit those who seek treatment in major hospitals. Many subsidized health insurance agents are not cleared on that part, so there were some misunderstandings.
I spoke with an agent from MassHealth today, and she agrees with me that the current policy cause inconvenience for most of the people as there is not even a handful of acupuncturists working in hospital setting, and those locations aren’t always accessible or convenient.
Well, before the policy makers and those who sit at the board of committee can put away their personal gain and focus on making this world a better place, there aren’t much that we can do. Of course, we, the acupuncturists, will appreciate that everyone call their legislator about making acupuncture available for everyone under health insurance. And, acupuncturists don’t need over site from other physician. I meant… education for MD is about 3 to 4 years and that goes the same for licensed acupuncturist. Why is there a discrimination to the acupuncturist? Anyhow.
Currently, there is a bill (Act Relative to the Practice of Acupuncture, Bill H3972, previously S1107/H2051) with the summary as the following:
H2051S1107 AnActRelativetothePracticeofAcupuncture
I am in chronic pain for almost 2 years now from a slip & fall in my driveway. I changed primary care doctors, and recently addressed my pain problems and asked if she could write a referral for acupunture, which she did.
How can I find a Masshealth provider of acupunture? Masshealth has told me several occasions I inquired that they do not have any lists of providers for acupunture. What is a person to do in this situation? How do I find a provider if the insurance company will not or do not have a list?
I desperately need to see one sooner than later. My pain is not going away with traditional medicine. I know acupunture works for me. It healed me of pain I had in my right shoulder and arm many years ago…pain never came back.
There are two MassHealth CarePlus health insurance company that will cover you currently. Celticare Healthplan (http://www.celticarehealthplan.com/) and United Healthcare (http://www.uhc.com/). I can provide acupuncture treatment for you if you are covered under their plan. Celticare has better coverage for acupuncture as you can come as many times as you need to for pain management while United Healthcare only allows 20 acupuncture treatments per year. However, before you change into one of these plan, please look into if your primary care provider is in either plan and all your medical needs are covered.