Acupuncture – Integrative Health
A professional ballet dancer often trains more than 40 hours a week, a demanding regimen that stresses joints and limbs and can lead to injuries. To speed dancers’ recoveries, Dr. Lyle Micheli, the Boston Ballet’s attending physician, sometimes tries an unusual approach: He sends them to an “integrative health center” for rehabilitation.
The Back Bay business, called OMBE – which stands for One Mind Body Earth – is run by acupuncturist Jessica Molleur, who said she wanted to combine several alternative health practitioners under one roof. In addition to acupuncture, she offers the services of a chiropractor, massage therapist, nutritional counselor, personal trainer, and yoga instructor.
While Molleur, 31, was used to seeing and working in similar businesses in California, where she lived for 10 years, the Newton native said opening OMBE in Boston was a risky proposition.
“If I had started the business in California, I just would have been one of many,” she said. “What we’re doing here is somewhat unique, and I believe we’re adding something to the community.”
Acupuncturists like Molleur face obstacles here, though – mainly because health insurers often won’t cover treatments, which typically cost between $65 and $125 per session. And many doctors trained in Western medicine are only now starting to see the benefits of therapies like acupuncture as complements to the work they do. Three years in, Molleur still faces stiff resistance from the medical establishment and insurance companies.
But Micheli, who also serves as director of sports medicine at Children’s Hospital in Boston, said he has increasingly been referring patients to acupuncturists over the past 10 years. For athletes and dancers, the treatments often help them recover more quickly from injuries, he said.
“Acupuncture isn’t for everyone, and it’s not the only thing we do to help people, but for many patients it’s an important part of their treatment,” he said. “The biggest barrier now is the insurance companies. Many times I have a patient who said they would like to try acupuncture, but their insurance won’t cover it.”
Indeed, most major health insurers, including Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care don’t pay for acupuncture, but they do offer patients discounts on some alternative healthcare services, such as acupuncture and massage therapy. Blue Cross-Blue Shield, for example, has a program that features a 30 percent discount on acupuncture with specified providers. OMBE is not on the list.
“Members may go to as many practitioners associated with this program, as often as they like,” said Katherine Fryman, a spokeswoman for Blue Cross.
Despite the insurance issues, Molleur said, her business sees anywhere from 70 to 240 patients per week, as well as participants in Pilates and yoga classes. About 70 percent are women.
Molleur said the idea behind putting several different practitioners under one roof is to improve care through collaboration. “If I’m seeing someone for back pain, I can go knock on the chiropractor’s door and he can offer some thoughts on the course of treatment,” she said.
Molleur was a high school soccer star whose college career was derailed by injuries. She lived with chronic pain for two years before seeing an acupuncturist and beginning to recover. That sparked her interest in the field. After spending a decade in California training, she returned to Boston four years ago.
The out-of-pocket costs haven’t deterred Catherine Hayes from seeking treatment at OMBE. The Newton resident first came to the clinic to work with Molleur, but has since gone on to receive nutritional counseling and massage therapy.
“I believe in an integrated approach to medicine – the mind-body connection,” said Hayes, a professor a Tufts University’s dental school. OMBE “has a much more holistic approach” than traditional medical treatments, she said.
Molleur said more patients are thinking like Hayes, and she and Micheli are optimistic that health insurers will eventually see the benefits of so-called alternative therapies.
“I think acupuncture is on the verge of becoming mainstream. It needs to become mainstream” in places like Boston, she said. “When I was working in California, it wasn’t the trend – it was simply the standard of care.”
“There would have to be controls on it, like anything else,” Micheli said. “But if insurers developed proper controls, it could ultimately help lower healthcare costs.”
