Prices

Our sliding scale is $25 – $55 per treatment.*
*There is an extra $10 new patient paperwork fee for the first visit.
Prices will ncrease as of May 1, 2024.

You decide what you can afford. 
No income verification. The choice is yours. Read more about our Sliding Scale Guidelines by clicking here.

Boston Acupuncture Project strives to make acupuncture affordable for you to come as often and for as long as needed in order to feel better.

Community Acupuncture*
$25-$55 sliding scale (until May 1, 2024 price increase to: $30-$60)
+ $10 intake fee, first visit only

Herbal Medicine (via tele-health)
$25-$55 first visit only (price increasing $5 as of May 1, 2024)
$15-$45 return visits (price increasing $5 as of May 1, 2024)
+ cost of herbs (discuss with herbalist)

Acu-Pressure Consult (via tele-health)
$20-$50 sliding scale

Late Cancel/Reschedule/No Show Fees
Equivalent to the bottom of the sliding scale:

  • $25 for a community acupuncture return visit (increasing to $30 as of May 1, 2024)
  • $35 for a community acupuncture first visit (increasing to $40 as of May 1, 2024)
  • $100 for a Bubble Block appointment (increasing to $120 as of May 1, 2024)
  • $20 for each 15-minute increment of a chair massage (increasing to $25 as of May 1, 2024)

*these prices apply to regular community acupuncture treatments only. Group reservations such as Bubble Blocks cost a minimum of $120/hour for up to 4 people; a $10 intake fee applies for all new patients.

Payment Types

  • cash*
  • checks*
  • credit cards
  • Paypal
  • Flex Spending Account (FSA) cards*
  • Health Savings Account (HSA) cards*
  • Apple Pay*
  • Google Pay*
  • CashApp*

*accepted in the clinic at the time of your visit

How our sliding scale pricing works

For acupuncture to be most effective, patients need to receive it frequently and regularly – so we strive to make acupuncture affordable for you to come as often and for as long as needed in order to feel better!

Community acupuncture clinics like us rely on many people paying a reasonable amount for every treatment to cover our expenses. (That’s why we count on you to tell people in your life about Boston Acupuncture Project and how they should come here for acupuncture!)

Part of being accessible means staying open. For the clinic’s health, Boston Acupuncture Project needs to see an average of 50 people per week paying an average of $40 per treatment. Where do you fall on our sliding scale? Click here to read more about our Sliding Scale Guidelines. 

If our scale puts acupuncture out of your reach, please talk to your acupuncturist. We do have a Pay It Forward program available as well.

Where do you fall on the sliding scale? Are you comfortably able to meet all your basic needs (food, housing, transportation), employed or don't even need to work to meet your basic needs, take at least one vacation a year no problem, buy all new things if you want to? You are at the top of the scale. Are you able to meet all your basic needs even if you stress about it sometimes, take a yearly vacation if you save up, buy some things new and some used? You're in the middle of the scale. Are you sometimes not able to meet all your basic needs, unemployed or under-employed, not able to buy things you need even if they are used, not able to take the time or save the money to take any time off? You are at the bottom of the scale, and may qualify for our Pay It Forward program. Adapted from Worts and Cunning Green Bottle Sliding Scale system.

Do you accept insurance?

The short answer: in order to keep our prices low (lower than the price of the average insurance copay) we are unable to bill your insurance for you.

If you have insurance that covers acupuncture, a Flex Spending Account, or a Health Savings Account, please ask us for a receipt that you may submit on your own.

The longer answer is that Community Acupuncture and insurance billing don’t mix. Our pay-what-you-wish sliding scale allows each person to support the clinic at a price that works for them. But billing an insurance company different prices for the same service would be considered insurance fraud.

If we had one (higher) flat rate for everyone, some people would not be able to afford it, and would not have the insurance coverage to shoulder the cost.

For more discussion of affordability and acupuncture, please read this excellent blog post by The Acupuncture Observer, Elaine Wolf Komarow: Acupuncture & Insurance, Part 2 – Affordability

And, as Working Class Acupuncture and POCA co-founder Lisa Rohleder puts it:

One of the reasons community acupuncture is successful as a business model, and a clinical model, is that it recognizes that real life is messy. People’s health problems often don’t fall into neat diagnostic categories. Sometimes people need treatment every day for weeks for an out of control pain issue. Sometimes people just need one treatment every so often to manage their stress, before it turns into a diagnosable physical problem. Sometimes the best way to treat somebody is to treat the family member who drove them to their appointment. When it comes to acupuncture, insurance won’t cover a lot of what people actually need. Trying to fit all of that messy real life into an insurance billing structure is a nightmare.

Lisa Rohleder, August 27, 2018 blog post If You Can’t Be A Good Example…

Instead of counting on insurance companies to take care of our community, we count on each other.

If your insurance covers acupuncture and you need an acupuncturist who bills your insurance directly, we recommend Alexis Frobin in the Fields Corner neighborhood of Dorchester. Visit her website for more information: http://alexisfrobinacu.com/index.html

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