Building a Sustainable Acupuncture Workforce
The Acupuncture Workforce Alliance is a group of practitioners, educators, and advocates collaborating to modernize licensure pathways, expand access to care, and address the growing workforce crisis facing acupuncture and Eastern medicine across the Northwest and beyond.
The Situation
The current administration and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are having overwhelming impacts on our healthcare system. The RISE rule will affect education for all healthcare providers and we are going to see a decline in people going to school for all health professions. The AHEAD Framework program level earnings test uniquely affects acupuncturists and naturopaths. The DOE has predicted 98% of students in these programs will fail the new metric, resulting in loss of Title IV loans by 2028. While this won’t affect you if you’re currently licensed, we are looking at a loss of our future acupuncture workforce. We’ve included resources below to help you understand what’s happening and how we are trying to respond.
The National Level
We’ve been trying to work at the national level to support the type of response from our national organizations that would allow states to respond in ways that allow the survival of the acupuncture workforce in response to the educational changes coming out of OBBBA and the current administration.
Oregon has sent a written proposal to NCBAHM asking that they allow candidates from state-approved educational programs. AWA has sent in requests to the ACAHM asking them to make some changes that could help preserve our acupuncture education from the threats we are facing under the current administration.
Oregon State
The Oregon Association of Acupuncturists (OAA) is currently leading the way towards solutions for the survival of acupuncture education and the acupuncture workforce. No solution will be perfect, but the OAA has dedicated significant time to research and deliberation to develop a proposal that reflects a genuine middle ground, one grounded in practitioner surveys, employer input, and a national review of state licensure standards. The result is a pathway that honors the clinical rigor our profession requires while responding honestly to the economic and structural realities threatening our schools. It won’t satisfy everyone, but it is built on data, shaped by diverse voices, and designed to keep acupuncture accessible as both a career and a healthcare option for Oregonians.
Data