How to Introduce Your Pelvic Acupuncture Services to Local Healthcare Providers
If you've read the positioning piece and the piece on collaborating with pelvic PTs, this is the practical next step. How do you actually get on the radar of the providers in your community? Not just the pelvic PTs. The OB/GYNs, urogynecologists, REIs, urologists, oncologists, midwives, doulas and pelvic chiropractors who are seeing the same clients you want to serve.
Here is what works in 2026.
Build the list before you build the outreach. In your zip code or surrounding area, identify:
Pelvic floor PT clinics
OB/GYN practices
Reproductive endocrinologists and fertility clinics
Urogynecology and urology practices
Pelvic chiropractors
Midwives and home birth practices
Doulas (birth and postpartum)
Endometriosis specialists and excision surgeons
Integrative oncology programs at local hospitals
Naturopathic doctors and functional medicine clinics
Sex therapists and pelvic-informed mental health providers
Start with three. Not thirty. One real relationship beats a hundred cold emails.
Five modern outreach methods that actually work
1. The in person coffee or 15 minute office visit. Still the highest converting move in 2026. Email the provider's front desk and ask to drop off a one pager and introduce yourself. Five minutes. No sales pitch. Leave a card, a one pager, and a single research article relevant to their patient population.
2. The DM with a research link. Find the provider on Instagram or LinkedIn. Comment on their content first, genuinely, for a few weeks. Then send a short DM. "Hi Dr. So and so. I'm a pelvic acupuncturist in town. Saw your post on endometriosis and thought you might appreciate this 2024 network meta-analysis from the Journal of Pain Research on acupuncture for endometriosis related pain. Happy to chat about referrals anytime."
3. The Loom video introduction. Two to three minute video walking through your scope, your training, the conditions you treat and how you communicate with referring providers. Send it via email. Providers open Loom links at much higher rates than they open PDFs.
4. The lunch and learn. Offer to bring lunch to the office and present a 20 minute case based talk on a specific condition. Endometriosis pain. Pregnancy related pelvic girdle pain. Post prostatectomy incontinence. Pick one. Make it case based. Make it short.
5. The clinical referral note that does the marketing for you. When a shared client comes to you from a provider, send the provider a one page clinical note. Subjective findings, your TCM and biomedical assessment, your treatment plan, expected outcomes and follow up plan. This is the most underused marketing move in our profession. Providers refer to colleagues who communicate clearly. Be that colleague.
What to put on your one pager
Keep it to one page. Front and back is fine. Include:
Your name, credentials and a professional headshot
Your clinic name, address, phone and booking link
A one sentence scope statement
The pelvic conditions you treat, organized by category (pain, fertility, perinatal, postpartum, perimenopause, oncology survivorship, urinary, bowel, sexual function)
Two or three research citations relevant to their specialty
How you communicate (referral notes, shared notes, secure messaging)
A QR code that books a 15 minute call with you
Skip the spiritual language on the one pager. The one pager is the bridge to the conversation, be relatable.
Research that lands with different providers
Pick the citation that matches who you are talking to.
For OB/GYNs and REIs (fertility focus): Wu et al. (2024) in Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics pooled 25 RCTs and 4757 participants undergoing IVF and found acupuncture significantly improved both clinical pregnancy rate (43.6% vs 33.2%) and live birth rate (38.0% vs 28.7%) compared to controls.
For urogynecologists and urologists (incontinence focus): Jiang et al. (2024) in Frontiers in Medicine showed electroacupuncture combined with pelvic floor muscle training significantly outperformed PFMT alone for stress urinary incontinence in women. Wan et al. (2022) in Neurourology and Urodynamics showed the same in a single blinded RCT.
For urologists (male pelvic pain focus): Sun et al. (2021) in Annals of Internal Medicine studied 440 men with moderate to severe CP/CPPS across ten tertiary hospitals. Acupuncture significantly outperformed sham at week 8 and the response held at the 32 week follow up.
For oncologists and integrative oncology programs: Mao et al. (2021) in JAMA Oncology reported the PEACE trial. 360 cancer survivors with chronic musculoskeletal pain. Electroacupuncture and auricular acupuncture both significantly reduced pain compared to usual care.
For endometriosis surgeons and pain specialists: Li et al. (2024) in Journal of Pain Research network meta-analysis found acupuncture and related therapies more effective than Western medication for endometriosis pain, CA-125 levels and response rate.
What to say and what not to say
Say:
"I treat pelvic conditions in collaboration with the medical team."
"Here is a research summary you might find useful for your patients."
"I write referral notes after every shared client visit so we stay aligned on care."
Do not say:
"I heal energy."
"I can fix what you can't."
"Western medicine doesn't understand the pelvis."
You can hold the spiritual and emotional dimension of the work deeply in your practice and still meet other providers in their clinical language. Both are true. Both belong. Just know which voice to use in which room.
The follow up most acupuncturists skip
Six weeks after your initial outreach, follow up. Six months after, follow up again. Twelve months after, follow up again. Relationships are built on the third and fourth touch, not the first. Most acupuncturists send one email, hear nothing, and quietly conclude that the provider isn't interested. The provider was just busy. Try again.
The bigger picture
You are not asking permission to be in the conversation. You are bringing a body of evidence, a clinical lens that no other profession holds, and a medicine that has been refining its understanding of the pelvis for thousands of years.
Walk in as a colleague. Leave behind clear communication and evidenced based medicine. Follow up like a professional.
Then watch the referrals start to come.
Be the acu who knows how.
References
Jiang, T., Dong, Z. Y., Shi, Y., Zhou, Y. Q., Zhang, H. B., & Gong, Y. (2024). Efficacy and safety of acupuncture monotherapy or combined with pelvic floor muscle training for female stress urinary incontinence: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Medicine, 11, 1499905. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2024.1499905
Li, H., Zhang, M., Li, J., Zhang, J., Zhang, Y., & Wang, S. (2024). Acupuncture and related therapies for endometriosis: A network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Journal of Pain Research, 17, 3197–3216. https://doi.org/10.2147/JPR.S488343
Mao, J. J., Liou, K. T., Baser, R. E., Bao, T., Panageas, K. S., Romero, S. A. D., Li, Q. S., Galantino, M. L., & Epstein, A. S. (2021). Effectiveness of electroacupuncture or auricular acupuncture vs usual care for chronic musculoskeletal pain among cancer survivors: The PEACE randomized clinical trial. JAMA Oncology, 7(5), 720–727. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaoncol.2021.0310
Sun, Y., Liu, Y., Liu, B., Zhou, K., Yue, Z., Zhang, W., Fu, W., Yang, J., Li, N., He, L., Zang, Z., Wang, J., Zhao, J., Bao, T., Yan, S., Mao, X., Xu, H., Du, Y., Wang, L., . . . Liu, Z. (2021). Efficacy of acupuncture for chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome: A randomized trial. Annals of Internal Medicine, 174(10), 1357–1366. https://doi.org/10.7326/M21-1814
Wan, O. Y. K., Cheung, R. Y. K., Law, M. P. M., Lee, L. L., Wang, R. C. C., & Chan, S. S. C. (2022). Effect of additional acupuncture to pelvic floor exercise on urinary incontinence: A randomized controlled trial. Neurourology and Urodynamics, 41(5), 1097–1108. https://doi.org/10.1002/nau.24918
Wu, J.-M., Ning, Y., Ye, Y.-Y., Liu, Y.-L., Tang, J., Zhan, S., & Zheng, C. (2024). Effects of acupuncture on pregnancy outcomes in women undergoing in vitro fertilization: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis. Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics, 309(3), 775–788. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-023-07142-1