Understanding 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 and is what will likely shut down most of our schools by 2028 unless we dramatically pivot. While this won’t affect you if you’re currently licensed, we are looking at a complete 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.

Oregon Acupuncture Association — Education Task Force Town Hall

The AWA worked with the OAA Education Task Force to create a presentation for Oregon Acupuncturists that we gave on April 11, 2026. This presentation is close to one hour long but it will likely save you time if you just watch this, rather than attempting to read all the information. If you’d like to listen to this instead, it’s available on Apple Podcasts here, or Spotify here or Substack here.

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Acupuncture Ecosystem Graphics:

Bex Groebner made these oversimplified graphics for the OAA EFT Town Hall to help the Oregon community visualize what’s happening.

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AHEAD Framework

Bex Groebner made the following flow chart to help visualize the earnings premium metric that happens with the new OBBBA legislation. The RISE rule affects all healthcare education. However, the AHEAD framework uniquely affects acupuncture and naturopathic education due to low earnings four years out of school.