Acupuncture, Infertility, Fertility, Depression, Multiple sclerosis, Migraine

Insurance:

Most of the insurance policies at this point have no acupuncture coverage for fertility treatments. You may find out your coverage by calling the toll free number on your insurance card. Should your insurance cover your acupuncture treatment, our office will, as a courtesy, provide you a standard insurance form after every 6 visits or at end of your treatments for you to mail in and get direct reimbursement from your insurance.

Our office requires patients to pay at the time of the service. We accept personal checks, Visa, Mastercard.

Acupuncture for infertility is a very specialized field. It require a thorough understanding in both Chinese and Western medicine. Not every acupuncturist has the extensive knowledge and experience (treating over 2400 infertility patients) to achieve the 65+% of success rate. Most patients who got pregnant with Dr. Lee had spend less than $2,000. It is less than the cost of one insemination or IUI. Example, in 2005 the average of number of treatments received when the 26 patients became pregnant naturally was only 7 treatments. That means that, it costs on average less than $1,000 (even include the Chinese herbs) to achieve pregnancy for those 26 patients in 2005.

My advice is that when choosing an acupuncturist, the experience (ask how many infertility patients he or she has treated) and success rate (what is the percentage of the patients got pregnant). These two questions are much more important than the cost per visit. Making the right choice will save both time and money in the long run. Speaking the cost, some my patients reports that some acupuncturists works in IVF clinics charges 2.5 times the fee we charges here for a regular (non-initial) visit. Again, I direct you attention to the experience. If the acupuncturist is an expert who has treated over 2000 patients, it is well justified for the high fee part of which will pays for the overhead in IVF clinic. But, this often is not the case. Some of my patients reported that these are young inexperienced acupuncturists who do used acupuncture technique that should not have used prior to IVF transfer. These acupuncturists who blindly does the "Shotgun Therapy" work in a IVF clinic either is not independently enough to inform you whether or not your condition is ready for anther IVF or they simple do not know. One of my patient used an acupuncturist in a IVF clinic found slower and uneven follicle growth (stim. day 7 all follicles in the left ovary are still under 10 mm and all follicle in right ovary are under 7mm) compare to her previous cycles when she is getting acupuncture in here. She came back to our office within 3 treatments, she has 10 follicles are over 18mm (5 in each ovary). She very happy again.

More on correct diagnosis makes the difference >

Office Policy: We value your time and our time. When an appointment is made, Dr. Lee sets aside his time and a treatment room for the patient. We in turn expect our patients to give our office a 24 hours of advanced notice to change or cancel an appointment (excluding last minute cancellations made by patients fertility Drs. While doing IVF) to avoid the no show or cancellation fee which is equivalent to the fee that would have charged had patient showed up for appointment. Please also note that our 3-visit package discount is non-refundable if a patient decide not to use all three treatments. Also, all herbs are non-refundable.

Caution on "FREE Consultation"

Finding out the root cause of infertility is a complex process that requires time, experience and dedication on the part of the acupuncturist. If you are thinking about seeing an acupuncturist who offers a "free consultation", you may ask yourself, am I seeing the most experienced acupuncturist with a long history of successful track record? If that acupuncturist is, then why does he or she need to offer "free consultations" to get your attention? He or she would have been well known and would have been too busy to entice new patients with "free consultations".

In addition, is it really free if you got a diagnosis that does not lead to success? Some of Dr. Lee's patients have tried other acupuncturists who offered "free consultations" in the past for months and were not successful. The reason: the incorrect diagnosis. Many of the acupuncturists do a good job in putting needles in the body. There are some who have even written books on the subject. But, putting needles in and theorizing accounts for only 5% of the success. 40% of the success is decided on the initial diagnosis (putting the theory into practice is what needed for success). 30% of the success is dependent upon the effectiveness of the treatment which entails the continuous monitoring of the patients' response to the treatments from acupuncture and herbs and the making of adjustments along the way (which requires experience). The last 25% of the success comes from patient's willingness and determination to follow the advice and to stay on course for several months.

If your initial diagnosis is wrong from a free consultation, then you won't be saving money at all. The several months you spend on the wrong course will be much more expensive than the cost of an accurate consultation from an acupuncturist with a proven success record. If you are under age 33, you may still have time to start a family by switching your care from a free consultation provider to someone with proven record of success. But, if you are 39 or older, losing months of your time trying various acupuncturists with "free consultations" means an ever more difficult task to achieve success which diminishes drastically after age 42 even if with help from Dr. Lee

So proceed with caution when you embark on a path that begins with the words "free" or "accepting insurance".