Medicare/ Medicaid covers "Dry-needling" performed by physical therapists for pain management, but does not cover Acupuncture performed by Doctors of Oriental Medicine (DOMs). Dry needling is purported as a new emerging Western technique described in Western scientific terms. It attempts to redefine acupuncture and may extend Dry-needling beyond trigger points to include “Acu reflex” points according to neuroanatomical location. Patients trust in and default to what is paid for by Medicare/ Medicaid and/or to whomever their physicians refer them to... but BEWARE. While Dry-needling uses the tool of acupuncture (the filiform needle), it does NOT represent or replace the expertise of a trained & licensed Acupuncture Professional. Currently, a 4 day training and no acupuncture certification / degree is required of physical therapists, compared to 3000 hrs (3-4 years) of training for a Doctor of Oriental Medicine (DOM), and 300 to 500 hrs of training for Western physicians in Medical Acupuncture. The physical therapists' training does not meet CCAOM or AMA 2016 policy criteria: AMA POLICY: Physical therapists and other non-physicians practicing Dry-needling should – at a minimum – have standards that are similar to the ones for training, certification, and continuing education that exist for acupuncture ...[there are] Lax regulation and nonexistent standards surround this invasive practice [performed by physical therapists]. For patients' safety, practitioners should meet standards required for licensed acupuncturists and physicians". CCAOM POLICY: Any intervention utilizing Dry-needling is the practice of acupuncture, regardless of the language utilized in describing the technique. Using a different name for the same technique does not create a new technique. Renaming acupuncture to Dry-needling then the adaptation of Dry-needling to include total body treatment by physical therapists poses the greatest risk to the public. It circumvents established standards for identical practice, i.e., acupuncture, without the rigorous training of acupuncture and the licensing of such. The expertise of the trained Acupuncture Professional is based in Chinese Medical Theory, and no less than, 2500 years of scholarly debate & documented clinical application starting around 230 AD - birth of Christ [Nix, n.d.]. What remains elusive to biomedical explanation and rationale for Dry-needling are the many ways acupuncture points & meridians interact. Theories of interaction (e.g. Luo, Sinew, Divergency, 6 System etc.) remains the expertise of professionally/classically-trained acupuncturists. Without such knowledge, acupuncture does not work to maximum efficacy [in more ways than just pain management] (Manaka, Itaya & Birch, 1995).