Our Mission
The mission of Pain Free Clinic is to treat individuals struggling with pain, regardless of their socioeconomic status.
The founders of Pain Free Clinic met as acupuncture students. The training we got there was rigorous and extensive. Our licenses call us acupuncturists, but the training we do is in Chinese medicine as a whole. In addition to acupuncture, we are trained in a variety of manual techniques, including cupping, gua sha, and massage. We are taught herbology, nutrition and lifestyle management. We are given a solid foundation in western medicine. And all of this is just to complete the masters degree and allow us to sit for the licensure exam. Pain Free Clinic’s practitioners, while fully licensed, have chosen to stay in school, completing doctoral degrees, which have us steeping in research and further specializing our work.
In addition to all the medical training we get at acupuncture school, there are some business classes too. In those classes we are taught how to sell our services for the highest price we can be convinced to charge. One teacher said that $400 for a treatment should not be considered out of range. Another had us visualize all the luxury goods for sale in the world, make a list of everything we thought we deserved, create a budget that would pay for it all, do a little math, and then price our treatments in such a way that we could all drive teslas and wear only cashmere if we wanted.
And yet, as we wended our way through school, rents started going up. People started getting evicted and driving long, increasingly congested commutes to continue to work in the area. Tent camps started popping up on our city streets. In 2017 it was reported that, in some Bay Area counties, a family earning $105,000 would be considered low income and, thus, would qualify for housing assistance. Stories were written about Silicon Valley millionaires who feel broke and can’t keep up. What, then, about the minimum wage workers?
On top of that, reports started coming in of record levels of opioid overdoses. This, understandably, freaked out the medical community, which is the source of a lot of those drugs. Unfortunately, however, that panic led to knee-jerk reactions. People with chronic pain who had been using opioids to keep their suffering at bay for years, or even decades, were suddenly stigmatized and cut off. Many of those people, here in the Bay Area, qualify for disability, rely on Medi-Cal or Medicare, and have nowhere to turn when the political landscape no longer supports their accessing the medication they depend on.
Building a practice in this socioeconomic landscape, we found it difficult to justify doing the kind of pricing that would allow us to swaddle ourselves in diamonds and pearls. How could we participate in the ever-increasing economic stratification of our community? We decided to find another way. We’ve set up Pain Free Clinic as a non-profit. We take insurance from those who have it. We have a sliding scale that we intend to use to accommodate anyone. And we take donations because we know that we’re not alone in our dismay at how difficult life in our neighborhood has become for some.
So, come to us if you’re in pain. If money is a problem, come anyway. If money is no problem, consider giving a little extra. Either way, you are our community, our target audience, our people, and we want to help you.
The founders of Pain Free Clinic met as acupuncture students. The training we got there was rigorous and extensive. Our licenses call us acupuncturists, but the training we do is in Chinese medicine as a whole. In addition to acupuncture, we are trained in a variety of manual techniques, including cupping, gua sha, and massage. We are taught herbology, nutrition and lifestyle management. We are given a solid foundation in western medicine. And all of this is just to complete the masters degree and allow us to sit for the licensure exam. Pain Free Clinic’s practitioners, while fully licensed, have chosen to stay in school, completing doctoral degrees, which have us steeping in research and further specializing our work.
In addition to all the medical training we get at acupuncture school, there are some business classes too. In those classes we are taught how to sell our services for the highest price we can be convinced to charge. One teacher said that $400 for a treatment should not be considered out of range. Another had us visualize all the luxury goods for sale in the world, make a list of everything we thought we deserved, create a budget that would pay for it all, do a little math, and then price our treatments in such a way that we could all drive teslas and wear only cashmere if we wanted.
And yet, as we wended our way through school, rents started going up. People started getting evicted and driving long, increasingly congested commutes to continue to work in the area. Tent camps started popping up on our city streets. In 2017 it was reported that, in some Bay Area counties, a family earning $105,000 would be considered low income and, thus, would qualify for housing assistance. Stories were written about Silicon Valley millionaires who feel broke and can’t keep up. What, then, about the minimum wage workers?
On top of that, reports started coming in of record levels of opioid overdoses. This, understandably, freaked out the medical community, which is the source of a lot of those drugs. Unfortunately, however, that panic led to knee-jerk reactions. People with chronic pain who had been using opioids to keep their suffering at bay for years, or even decades, were suddenly stigmatized and cut off. Many of those people, here in the Bay Area, qualify for disability, rely on Medi-Cal or Medicare, and have nowhere to turn when the political landscape no longer supports their accessing the medication they depend on.
Building a practice in this socioeconomic landscape, we found it difficult to justify doing the kind of pricing that would allow us to swaddle ourselves in diamonds and pearls. How could we participate in the ever-increasing economic stratification of our community? We decided to find another way. We’ve set up Pain Free Clinic as a non-profit. We take insurance from those who have it. We have a sliding scale that we intend to use to accommodate anyone. And we take donations because we know that we’re not alone in our dismay at how difficult life in our neighborhood has become for some.
So, come to us if you’re in pain. If money is a problem, come anyway. If money is no problem, consider giving a little extra. Either way, you are our community, our target audience, our people, and we want to help you.
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