The world of veterinary practice is fast-paced, intense, and competitive. But it can also be challenging to differentiate yourself and keep things fresh in your veterinary practice, especially if you’ve been at it a while and things are starting to feel stale.

In this blog post, we outline how offering animal acupuncture services can allow you to help more animals and clients, bring more revenue, and ultimately leverage the impact of your veterinary practice.

What Is Acupuncture?

Acupuncture is a Traditional Chinese Medicine technique that focuses on balancing the flow of Chi (life energy) in the body (a concept similar to homeostasis). Acupuncture uses mechanical energy from needles piercing the skin to improve the circulation of energy in meridians.

Acupuncture has been practiced in China for thousands of years on both humans and animals. In fact, acupuncture is a low-cost, low-barrier-to-entry medical technology, which made it particularly attractive to farmers wishing to treat their animals in the absence of other medical help.

Since then, acupuncture has evolved to include diverse and modern modes of application (e.g. with needles, electroacupuncture, or laser). Today, acupuncture can be both practiced with a Chinese viewpoint (using Chinese medical models) or a Western medical viewpoint (relying on neurophysiological modes of action), which makes it a perfect modality for veterinarians to add to their repertoire.

The AAA Certificate in Animal Acupuncture focuses on the Traditional Chinese viewpoint for acupuncture (which uses acupuncture as a treatment for many more conditions that those currently recognised by ‘Western’ acupuncture). We also cover the Western neurophysiological approach to acupuncture, so practitioners can mix-and-match their preferred approaches.

Why Veterinarians Are Ideally Placed to Offer Animal Acupuncture Services

Veterinarians are ideally placed to offer animal acupuncture services (this is in fact an excellent ‘unfair advantage’ in the marketplace). Veterinarians’ in-depth knowledge of anatomy, medical conditions, procedures, diagnoses, and treatments put them at a head start with providing excellent animal acupuncture services.

In addition, veterinarians often have access to plenty of potential clients through their conventional veterinary practices.

In some jurisdictions (such as the US, UK, and most of Europe), veterinarians are the only ones allowed to practice animal acupuncture with needles. In these jurisdictions, non-vets (e.g. vet nurses) can practice acupuncture with cold lasers.

The Benefits of Offering Animal Acupuncture in Your Veterinary Practice

In the fast-paced and competitive world of veterinary practice, it can sometimes be difficult to keep things fresh for both you and your clients.

This is why offering animal acupuncture in your practice can offer the following benefits.

Help More Animals With A Wide Range of Medical Conditions

This goes without saying, but acupuncture’s effectiveness on a range of conditions helps you broaden your positive impact on the lives of animals.

Acupuncture is particularly effective at:

• Relieving the symptoms (and/or putting into remission) many chronic conditions that are difficult to treat using conventional veterinary medicine (e.g. chronic kidney disease, pancreatitis, idiopathic epilepsy, Equine Cushings’ etc.).
• Improving Quality of Life in geriatric animals (often through the treatment of chronic conditions).
• Improving behavioural conditions (e.g. anxiety) and managing pain.
• Improving reproductive outputs/treating infertility in breeding animals.
• Performance enhancement (e.g. equine industries, racing greyhounds, working and agility dogs).

The breadth of applicability of acupuncture can itself bring a freshness to your veterinary practice – especially if things have been stale or dissatisfying for a while.

Diversify Your Revenue Streams and Increase Your Recurring Revenue

Industry statistics show that acupuncture and other complementary therapies are increasingly being sought by clients, for both their own healthcare and that of their pets.

In fact, a portion of the population will often ‘refuse’ conventional Western veterinary treatment for their pets (aka these people you never see at your veterinary practice). Offering animal acupuncture not only helps expand your reach to these demographics, it can also help you sell more services to your current clients.

Many of the animals in your care may have run out of medical and surgical options, and these no longer bring in revenue – what if you could offer them a regular consultation service that is also extremely effective?

Acupuncture treatments often start with an initial consultation followed by regular or on-going consultations at 2-6 weeks intervals – a great opportunity for recurring revenue in your practice, especially in those slower months.

Regularly checking in on animals can not only help you improve their health, it can also put you in a great position to recommend additional services (e.g. medicines, supplements, diets) as needs arise.

Increase Trust With Your Client Base

Offering a wide variety of services (including conventional and complementary therapies) will increase trust with your client base and often increase the uptake of all your services (both conventional and complementary).

This is because clients are more trusting of veterinarians who offer a variety of services, compared to those who dismiss or have little knowledge of complementary therapies.

Offering acupuncture can also bring a breath of fresh air to your marketing – posters and social media posts about complementary therapies are more popular than those about preventatives, vaccines, medications, or surgical options.

More and more clients are becoming focused on all aspects of wellness, and marketing based on wellness (rather than disease) can bring these ‘feel-good’ vibes that can ripple through the rest of your marketing, generating more clients and revenue.

Leverage Your Practice and Your Staff

Acupuncture is a simple technology that can be easily administered in a veterinary environment. 

Acupuncture needles are very low-cost, and many veterinary practices already have cold lasers*, meaning start-up investment for this service is low.

*In the AAA Certificate in Animal Acupuncture, detailed advice is given on how to select an appropriate laser for acupuncture and/or physiotherapy applications.

Acupuncture services can also be delivered by one staff member, as reception and/or support nurses are seldom needed, especially if you use cooperative techniques and the support of the owner to ensure the animal remains calm during treatment.

Acupuncture can often be delivered out-of-hours or on weekends, allowing your veterinary practice to bring in additional revenue during those otherwise ‘empty’ times.

Finally, acupuncture can also leverage and develop your staff’s expertise. Veterinary nurses can be trained and offer laser acupuncture in the USA, UK, Europe, and the rest of the world. In Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, veterinary nurses can also offer acupuncture with needles.

The Animal Acupuncture Academy offers its Certificate of Animal Acupuncture globally, with its curriculum (e.g. focus on needles and/or laser) adapted to the student’s professional background (vet vs. vet nurse) and location.

If you have questions about whether the Certificate of Animal Acupuncture is right for you or your staff, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us through our Contact Page.

Remember, offering animal acupuncture services can bring in the following benefits to your veterinary practice:

• Help more animals with a range of conditions (especially chronic conditions that are otherwise not well served by medical or surgical options)
• Diversify your practice’s revenue streams and increase recurrent revenue
• Improve trust and your ‘likeability factor’ with your client base
• Leverage your practice’s and staff’s assets and skills.