How Much Does an Acupuncturist Earn?

According to Payscale's Real-Time Salary Survey, www.payscale.com, the median yearly salary for acupuncturists in years 1-4 is $45,000. In the 5-19 year range, the mean of the medians is 55,000. The one group making a decent living is those with 20 or more years in practice. Since this group also spent next to nothing on their training, I am sure the profession looks good to them. These would include many of those who are most well-known in the field.

While the data does come from a small, self-selected group, this pay range is pretty similar to what I have heard anecdotally. For those unfamiliar with statistics terminology, median means there are an equal number of licensees making more and less than this figure. That means half make less, possibly much less. Mean averages tend to be much less meaningful when it comes to determining typical rates of earnings as mean averages can be highly skewed by idiosyncratic low and high rates.

According to payscale.com, acupuncturists fall into the following (Bureau of Labor Management) BLS category:

Health Diagnosing and Treating Practitioners, All Other

The following job description describes the common responsibilities
for this occupation.

Job Description:
All health diagnosing and treating practitioners not listed separately.

Similar Job Titles:
Corrective Therapist - Dermatologist - Eye Specialist - Gastroenterologist - Heart Specialist - Hematologist - Immunologist - Neonatologist - Ophthalmologist - Orthopedist - Otolaryngologist - Otorhinolaryngologist - Acupuncturist - Radiologist - Herbalist

According to the BLS, here are the median and mean salaries in this group. Keep in mind that the median salary includes those above and below the figure. Since most of the other professions listed all make very high salaries, one can assume that most acupuncturists as a
group fall below the median listed here (as the payscale.com data indicates). In addition, you can factor out those listed as working in hospitals and physician offices (the two largest groups). If you look closely at the statistics and add up the number and consider how many licensed acupuncturists there are in the US, it also appears that a significant number of licensees are not working as a practitioner at all. I would say up to 2/3, based upon these stats, assuming this category is most reflective of what most L.Ac. do— those who work in Offices of other health practitioners: 3,050. (I take this to mean that one works in a private practice other than as an MD, not that one works in someone else's practice.) There about 6,000 workers not accounted for in these stats, but they are all distributed through fields with less than 1000 workers each and they are not all L.Ac.s; this may include product reps, insurance adjustors, researchers, etc.) A lot of people may just keep up their licenses to legally treat friends and family. For example, I have a license, but earn no money as an L.Ac. nor will I declare that to be my profession on my tax return as of this tax year.

The upshot of all this: Despite the hype you hear from various vested interests, acupuncture is probably not a viable independent profession for the longterm. After 30 years, it is still only used by a very small % of the population, is generally disparaged in popular media as new-age voodoo, and the vast majority of those who use it are only seeking help for neuromuscular complaints. These is very little chance that TCM herbology will ever be widely accepted as a modality for internal medicine (since there will never be a large enough body of acceptable research in this area, polypharmacy is roundly rejected as unsafe and even unethical in most mainstream medical circles, etc.). Acupuncture's use as a physical therapy will likely be co-opted by mainstream MDs, DCs, and PTs. My point is not that chinese medicine has no place in modern healthcare. It does have usefulness and I still continue to use it personally for some ailments. My point is solely that if one has entered this field of study expecting to make a decent living as an independent practitioner, many, if not most, of you won't. You will hear a lot of shrill rebuttal to this contention, but ask yourself, "who is denying these facts and what vested interest do they represent"? As they say, follow the money.

If I was 24 again and thinking about going into herbal medicine, there is no way I would spend 100K to go to acupuncture school. I would become an unlicensed herbalist like Roger Wicke of RMHI. If I was into neuromuscular medicine, I would become a Physical Therapist or Chiropractor.