The health economics of acupuncture: Challenges and countermeasures

Abstract

Health economics evaluations of acupuncture are important and play important roles in patient decision-making, clinical decision-making, standardization of clinical practice guidelines, and policy formulation. However, these evaluations are complicated. Evaluating the cost of acupuncture is highly challenging due to substantial institutional labor heterogeneity and the complexities of valuing patient-incurred indirect costs. Also, Acupuncture outcome measurement is heavily constrained by high clinical efficacy heterogeneity and a critical lack of standardized evaluation methodologies. Furthermore, the advancement of acupuncture health economics is persistently hindered by resistant professional attitudes among practitioners and a severe scarcity of interdisciplinary expertise. From the perspective of health economics, this paper discusses several methods to reduce the cost of acupuncture, such as the use of disposable acupuncture needles, the selection of specific acupuncture therapy methods, the establishment of more appropriate doses of acupuncture, the appropriate application of acupuncture to specific diseases and/or stages of diseases, and the screening of good acupuncture “responders.” Nevertheless, professionals with expertise in the health economics of acupuncture are limited, and more experts should be recruited.