Traditional Chinese Medicine Health Care Service Standards

The current unified bottom line for traditional Chinese medicine health care services in China is Only non-medical TCM-appropriate technical services can be provided, and it is strictly prohibited to touch the red lines of disease diagnosis, treatment, and prescription issuance. , all personnel, projects, publicity, and venue requirements essentially extend around this bottom line, without exception.

I had dinner with a friend from the Supervision Office of the Municipal Health and Health Commission a while ago. He said that last month alone, 17 illegal health care centers were investigated in his district. Most of them were involved in "out-of-bounds medical practice" - some performed acupuncture to treat lumbar protrusions, and some prescribed traditional Chinese medicine to lower blood pressure. The most outrageous one was a moxibustion parlor that dared to tell customers that moxibustion can cure lung cancer. Isn't this just nonsense.

When it comes to this boundary issue, there are actually two voices in the industry: regulatory authorities and traditional Chinese medicine practitioners in regular hospitals generally feel that the boundary must be tightly sealed. Health care is health care and cannot be involved in medical care. Otherwise, it will be easy for non-practitioners to cause medical accidents, and it will be difficult to hold people accountable.； However, many private health practitioners who have been practicing for 20 to 30 years feel that many operations, such as shallow skin needle pricking and moxibustion to relieve mild colds and colds, are originally practical methods passed down from the folk. They have been doing it for decades without any problems. They are completely stuck and have blocked the convenient services that the people really need. At present, the enforcement standards in various places are indeed different. In some places, as long as acupuncture-type operations are found, they will be punished directly, while in other places, old practitioners after registration are allowed to carry out low-risk invasive operations. This is an objective difference at this stage, and there is no unified standard answer.

Many friends who want to open a health care center ask me, what qualifications are needed? In fact, there is no nationally unified "Traditional Chinese Medicine Health Practitioner" license. Most of the certificates recognized by various places are the Traditional Chinese Medicine Health Care Vocational Skill Level Certificate issued by the human resources and social security department, or the training qualification certificate issued by the formal industry association. This is not so serious - but there is a hard requirement that everyone must abide by: no matter you No matter how good your craftsmanship is, no matter how many years you have been working, you cannot give a clear diagnosis of the disease to the customer. Even if you find out that the customer has high blood pressure, you can only say, "I suggest you go to the hospital to measure the blood pressure and check it out." You must not say, "You have high blood pressure, I will treat it for you." Nor can you say that your service can "cure" any disease. I used to know an Aunt Zhang who ran a gua sha parlor. Her skills were really good. Office workers nearby often came to see her if they had shoulder or neck pain. Last year, she casually said to a customer, "I can cure your fatty liver after just 3 scrapes." The customer recorded a complaint and was fined more than 20,000 yuan. It was such a loss.

As for which items can and cannot be done, in fact, conventional massage, moxibustion, cupping, scraping, acupoint application, medicinal diet guidance, and four-season health consultation are all completely fine, as long as they are disinfected during operations and do not burn the guests or scratch the skin. The more controversial areas are acupuncture, bloodletting, scar moxibustion, and oral administration of traditional Chinese medicine. To be on the safe side, it is recommended that you do not touch them. Especially acupuncture, whether it is a filiform needle or a skin needle, as long as it penetrates the skin, is now considered a medical practice in most areas. If you do it without a medical license, you are practicing medicine illegally. You cannot take this risk.

In fact, the requirements for the venue are not that high. It does not need to be strictly partitioned and equipped with disinfection and supply rooms like a clinic. It only needs to be clean and ventilated. All equipment that comes into contact with the skin, such as cupping pots and scraping boards, must be disinfected for each customer. A smoke exhaust system should be installed in the moxibustion area to avoid choking customers. There is another point that is easy to overlook: Prescription drugs must not be placed in health care centers. Even if an old customer asks you to prescribe a Chinese medicine prescription for conditioning, you cannot prescribe it. Prescribing it is illegal. If you really need it, ask the customer to go to the hospital to find a doctor to prescribe it.

When I talked with people from the industry association, they said that 90% of the violations in health care centers are not due to operational problems, but to exaggerated publicity. Massage is supposed to relieve shoulder and neck fatigue. It has to be said that it can cure cervical spondylosis. It is supposed to be moxibustion that removes dampness. It has to be said that it can cure infertility. If you dare to say anything in order to get orders, it will be strange if you don't get complained. In fact, young people are now very receptive to health care. After get off work, they go for shoulder massages and abdominal moxibustion to relieve the fatigue of overtime work. As long as you are good at your crafts and don't brag, you don't have to worry about customer sources at all, and you don't have to step on the red line just for a few orders.

By the way, I would also like to remind ordinary consumers that if the health center you go to checks your pulse and tells you that you have this or that disease, and that their programs or products can cure all diseases, don’t hesitate and leave. If you really feel unwell, go to a regular hospital for a checkup first. Health care is all about health care. Those who cross the line are mostly unreliable.