Acupuncture Continuing Education

NCCAOM 2010 Requirements

Acupuncturists who are NCCAOM Diplomates must meet 2010 requirements issued by the NCCAOM (National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine). In addition to the minimum of 4 PDAs of Safety and Ethics category acupuncture continuing education courses, the NCCAOM now requires a separate CPR certification. The NCCAOM notes that, “CPR certification is required within the four-year recertification cycle. The CPR card does not need to be current but must have been issued within the last four years.” Another change is that CPR continuing education units (CEUs/PDAs) may no longer count toward the Safety and Ethics requirement. This makes getting Safety and Ethics acupuncture CEUs a little bit tougher. In the past, acupuncturists could use CPR training hours towards the Safety and Ethics requirement.

The Safety and Ethics requirement is relatively new and the recent exclusion of CPR PDAs towards this requirement may make acupuncture license recertification more difficult for NCCAOM Diplomates. HealthCMI (Healthcare Medicine Institute) has announced that it will release more NCCAOM approved Safety and Ethics acupuncture continuing education courses to meet the increased demand for courses in this continuing education category. Expect to see offerings from other educational institutes in the near future.

This affects thousands of acupuncturists in the USA. There are only nine states that do not require either the NCCAOM certification or an NCCAOM examination. Acupuncturists in California, Kansas, Louisiana, and Maryland are not affected by the these changes since there is no NCCAOM requirement in these states. Also unaffected are residents in Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Alabama because there are no acupuncture laws in these states. Acupuncturists in several other states are not affected because passing the initial NCCAOM exam is required but recertification is not. Texas, for example, requires the initial NCCAOM exam but provides its own licensing process including its own acupuncture continuing education requirements.