Legal Guidelines For Unlicensed Practitioners

I bought this for school and read it 4 times! This book is literally a must for anyone who practices herbalism or even suggests herbal remedies for anyone. It’s not a long book, but it is packed with very important information. I now use it as a reference to make sure I remember not only my boundaries, but my rights as an herbalist.

This is an extremely eye-opening guide to conducting a health care or ministry practice without a license. The author gives a history of the suppression of practitioners of the healing arts in this country who, though gifted, lack licensing for a number of valid reasons. He demonstrates that licensing laws have hurt, rather than helped, consumers of health care, limiting our rights to freely contract and make decisions for our own health care, as well as marginalizing unlicensed practitioners who have much to offer. I was a licensed practitioner and instructor of Chinese acupuncture and herbology, but gave up my practice after approximately nine years to care full-time for my son who has a disability. I allowed my license to lapse, since I was unable to meet the requirements of maintaining a patient load and earning continuing education credits while caring for my son. Now that my son is grown, I would like to re-take the examinations required to become licensed and resume my practice, but it is cost and time prohibitive. I am also finishing a Master Herbalist program, but the only form of herbology for which one can obtain an actual license is Chinese herbology. So I have been researching my options to practice the healing arts in which I am trained and experienced, but for which obtaining a license would be either very difficult or impossible. The author offers several legitimate ways in which one can conduct a healing arts or ministry practice without a license. These range from fairly straightforward approaches to others which are more risky. Most of the suggestions will require further research in order to implement, but he steers you in the right directions, offers sample forms to use which can help protect your practice, and gives a wealth of other tips, often with case histories, for protecting your right to practice. I am also pleased that the book appears to have been updated from the earlier editions, as he discusses the nature of health care law in the Obamacare era. Highly recommended.

This is an outstanding book! I have owned my own business in a non-healthcare field for many years, and I am now moving towards opening-up a holistic healthcare business. This book does a great job of showing us the potential legal pitfalls we can face within this arena, how to best minimize the chances of them happening, and how to best handle them if they occur. I also loved how the author would take us back to the time of our Founding Fathers here in the U.S., and tell us what they had intended for us within this arena...and how we have gotten so far off track from their original intended freedoms for us.

I purchased "Legal Guidelines for Unlicensed Practitioners" at the same time as another book dealing with a similar topic entitled, "How to Open or Improve a Successful Alternative Healthcare Practice" (in which I also reviewed). The book in this review deals strictly with the legal aspect of being an unlicensed practitioner in the United States, and was very informative in this regard. Some chapter titles include, "Our Laws and Their Purposes", "Legal Concepts About Health and Healing", "Differences Between Licensing and Certification", "The Case Against Medical Licensing", "If Legal Disputes Arise", and more...Interestingly, the author has a medical degree, but because of a health issue, was not able to finish his internship and earn his license. As a result he has worked for many years as an unlicensed nutrition consultant. His purpose in writing the book was to spare other unlicensed practitioners some of the confusion that he had experienced throughout his career. This book is not long (only 131 pages), but is full of information regarding this subject matter. Purchased with the other, above mentioned book on Alternative Healthcare Practice, I feel like I have covered all of my questions. This book does not offer the same information as the above mentioned book regarding the intricacies of thinking through details of starting a practice ( business cards, websites, location, etc), but is dealing strictly with the legal aspects which is, of course, of vital importance.

A must for anyone in the healing arts.

Very good book on how to run a successful and legal wellness business if not licensed

Arrived promptly and in perfect condition. Had to read this and be tested on it to get certified in Matrix Energetics (R). I was expecting drudgery but found it eminently readable, well researched and very educational (not a dirty word)! If you're either a fan of, a client in or a practitioner of, one of the modern "healing modalities," I highly recommend this short and succinct book.

I am using this book for my business great book to have.