Health insurance; coverage for acupuncture treatments.
Summary
SB 1168 would require most individual and group health insurance policies, health care subscription contracts, and health maintenance organization plans issued in Virginia to cover acupuncture treatments, as acupuncture is defined in the state’s professional licensing laws. The mandate would apply to policies delivered, issued, or renewed on or after January 1, 2027, and would not apply to short-term travel, accident-only, limited or specified disease policies, short-term nonrenewable policies of six months or less, or plans for people eligible for Medicare or similar government coverage.
The bill also amends Virginia’s acupuncture licensing statute to align the insurance coverage requirement with the existing definition of the “practice of acupuncture,” which includes needle insertion and related techniques such as dry needling, electroacupuncture, cupping, gua sha, and moxibustion. Insurers and HMOs would still be allowed to conduct utilization review and medical-necessity review, but they could not impose copayments, fees, or other conditions on acupuncture benefits that are not equally imposed on others in the same benefit category.
Impact
If enacted, SB 1168 would add a new health insurance mandate to Title 38.2 of the Code of Virginia and would expand the list of required covered services for many private health plans and HMOs. It would also update the acupuncture definition in Title 54.1, tying insurance coverage to the scope of the licensed practice of acupuncture. The practical effect would be to require insurers to reimburse acupuncture services under covered plans, while preserving standard utilization management tools and excluding certain limited, short-term, and government-related coverage arrangements.
Sentiment
The available voting history suggests the bill had limited support in committee and did not advance: it was passed by indefinitely in the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee on a 15-0 vote with a letter. That action indicates the committee chose not to move the bill forward, despite no recorded dissenting votes. No committee transcript is available, so the record does not show detailed debate or public arguments in the discussion materials provided.
Contention
The main policy issue is whether acupuncture should be treated as a required covered benefit in private health insurance. Supporters would likely view the bill as expanding access to a recognized treatment option and reducing out-of-pocket costs for patients, while opponents or cautious members may have been concerned about the cost impact on premiums, the breadth of the mandated benefit, and whether insurers should be required to cover services that may vary in medical necessity. The bill’s explicit exclusion of Medicare-related and other government plans, and its preservation of utilization review, suggest an effort to limit the mandate’s scope and address insurer concerns.