The VA Occupational Code for Licensed Acupuncturists

The VA Occupational Code for Licensed Acupuncturists has been published!

Thank you to everyone involved in the process who kept doing that next right thing over the past several years to build this code through what must be a tedious process.  This occupational code is a huge step toward making this non-drug and non-surgery integrative health resource available to patients as part of their VA care from the local VA clinic to the larger medical centers.  From a practitioner perspective, this is big step in the ability to be a full employee instead of temporary contract positions.

For more practitioner resources about how to work in hospital practice, connect to our community here and help us build and grow resources for current and future practitioners.  We endeavor to fix the silo problem by creating community.  Learn more about why I founded the Project here.

For hospital administrator resources on how to hire and credential Acupuncturists, there are some basic guidelines here, published by the national organization NCCAOMⓇ and more resources being created through this Hospital-Practice Handbook Project.  

If you are hiring a new practitioner not already connected to the community, please connect them to our contact page and Facebook page where they can connect to other hospital-practice Acupuncturists.  "We connect, share wisdom" to help avoid re-inventing the wheel.  For more about why I launched this project, watch this short video.

Now for the weblink you have been waiting for!

Go to this page: 

Then, scroll down to the line for Acupuncturist:

5005/100

Staffing--Acupuncturist

PDF

02/07/2018

and it brings up a pdf with a note that the pdf or VA Handbook update was published 2.7.2018.

Let's see that screenshot again (I am so happy!):

Looking at the online pdf, it looks like the positions are title 38 hybrid status and the range of  GS-9 (which reads like an internship position) to GS-11 and GS-12 as full-practitioner and GS-13.  GS-13 are supervisor or program coordinator positions.  It is not clear to me what a full-time researcher position would be, but perhaps that is covered in a different category (the research job category?) of job positions than this.

Wonderful news!  Thank you to everyone who worked on this effort!!

Blessings.

Megan

Are you a civilian (non-veteran)?
If you are a civilian interested in working with veterans or military families, here are some basic resources to learn more about and respectful toward our culture: 

• importance of military culture
• VA Community Provider Toolkit 

Related Blogposts
Why This Project? Megan's story
Fixing the Silo Problem:  How the Project is Working to Create Community and Build Resources
Supporting Our Hospital Sponsors/Hospital Administrators
Creating Connections, Growing Community
Why Build This Resource?
The Webinar Series Project, ready for funding  :)

Want to learn more on documenting clinical change in your patient-centered practice? 
Check out our Metrics series posts: The Pain Scale and Medication Review:  Calculating Morphine Equivalent Dose (MEQ).

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