The most important thing is to check an acupuncturist's license. There are some practitioners out there who have never had a license, never gone to school, and never completed any kind of program. That can be a dangerous thing, because they might not know or practice clean needle techniques. They might cause pain, bruising, or even nerve damage. You can make sure someone meets the minimum requirements by going to your state's medical board of exams website. You could also go to www.nccaom.org for the National Commission Council for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. That is the organization that an acupuncturist has to get licensed through before gaining a state license. Sometimes you will find a practitioner who is licensed in the state but is not at the NCCAOM. That just means that they may have at one time gotten their license in that state, and then they let it lapse because they did not fulfill the requirements or pay the fees every four years to keep it up.
