Happy winter solstice, and an update

I am raising my rates in 2025. I can’t recall the last time I have done so, only that I haven’t raised it the entire pandemic, and a few months ago while working on clinic finances I looked up an inflation calculator online and realized that $120 in 2020 equals $147 today, partly due to the fact that inflation was 7% in 2021! (It’s usually more like 3%.)

This is not a decision that comes easily to me, nor to many of my colleagues; I think many of us fantasize about living in a society where people spontaneously take care of each other (rather like the gift economy of Black Rock City where I began practicing acupuncture almost 15 years ago, at Burningman). However, as the dark of the year turns back toward light, today I am thinking about what health is worth, and how (in this late stage capitalist society) perhaps the only way to make people value it is to ask them to pay for it.

I am asking my existing patients to add $5 to whatever they were paying, with the understanding that I will be raising my rates incrementally every year and not all at once every 6-7 years. New patients will start at $130 (unless they are notaflof) and housecall minimum will hike to $175. I honestly don’t know if I want to take on new cases in January, or focus on the people I am already caring for. I’ll carry on updates as they roll in.