United States
In 1996, the Food and Drug Administration changed the status of acupuncture needles from Class III to Class II medical devices, meaning that needles are regarded as safe and effective when used appropriately by licensed practitioners.
As of 2004, nearly 50% of Americans who were enrolled in employer health insurance plans were covered for acupuncture treatments.
Acupuncturists in the United States are required to attend a three or four-year graduate level, accredited program to be licensed. While some schools are regionally accredited, most professional training programs are accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (ACAOM). Twenty-three states require certification, by the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM). A variety of titles are granted:
- Licensed acupuncturist (L. Ac), in most states
- Acupuncture physician, used in Florida
- Doctor of oriental medicine (DOM), used in New Mexico
- Doctor of acupuncture (DAC) in Rhode Island
- Diplomate of acupuncture (Dipl. Ac), a NCCAOM board certification in acupuncture
- Diplomate of oriental medicine (Dipl. OM), a NCCAOM certification which includes acupuncture and Chinese herbology
- Diplomate of the American Board of Medical Acupuncture (DABMA), a certification provided by the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture for physicians trained in medical acupuncture
- Doctor of acupuncture and oriental medicine (DAOM), a degree offered by the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine and Bastyr University as a ACAOM-sponsored terminal degree in the field
Acupuncturists are usually required to obtain continuing education credit to retain their licenses. In most states this is handled by the NCCAOM, which awards PDA points towards re-licensure for approved courses and requires Diplomates (licensed acupuncturists with NCCAOM certification) are required to obtain 60 PDA points every four years to re-certify.
California and Florida each have their own unique requirements and regulatory agencies. The State of California Acupuncture Board(SCAB) governs the re-licensure of all California licensed acupuncturists and requires fifty continuing education units (CEU’s) every two years. The Florida Board of Acupuncture governs all licensed acupuncturists in Florida and requires acupuncturists to complete 30 continuing education credit hours (CE’s) every two years.
Read more about this topic: Regulation Of Acupuncture
Famous quotes related to united states:
“There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration.... The United States does not concede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“And hereby hangs a moral highly applicable to our own trustee-ridden universities, if to nothing else. If we really wanted liberty of speech and thought, we could probably get it—Spain fifty years ago certainly had a longer tradition of despotism than has the United States—but do we want it? In these years we will see.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Then the American flag was saluted. In general, in the United States people always salute the American flag.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity—an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)