When does my license renew?

In Illinois, everyone's license renews on the same 2-year cycle; all Illinois licenses expire on June 30 of each odd year.  If you do not renew by the June 30 deadline, you must stop practicing until your renewal is completed.

The next renewal is July 1, 2009.

How do I renew my license?

The Division of Professional Regulation will mail renewal forms well in advance of the June 30 expiration date.  You may renew by mailing the renewal forms along with your payment; or you may renew by credit card online.

What is the requirement regarding continuing education?

You must accumulate 30 hours of approved continuing education in the two-year period between July 1, 2007 and June 30, 2009 in order to renew on July 1, 2009.

When you receive a new license, you are not required to meet the continuing education requirement for that renewal cycle.  For example, anyone who first receives a license after July 1, 2007 and before June 30, 2009 is not required to meet the CE requirement in order to renew on July 1, 2009.

Continuing education must be obtained from

• An approved CE sponsor, as listed in our licensing Rules and Regulations
• A CE sponsor who has obtained a license from DPR to be an Acupuncture Continuing Education Sponsor
• An accredited university, college, or other educational institution
• An approved out-of-state course, as determined by the Board of Acupuncture, upon request and with the payment of a specified fee

Continuing education hours may include up to

• 30 hours earned through courses offered by approved sponsors
• 15 hours earned through postgraduate training programs or through completion of acupuncture-related courses that are part of the curriculum of an approved acupuncture program or a college, university, or graduate school
• 15 hours for verified teaching in an approved college, university, or school of acupuncture, or for teaching CE programs given by approved sponsors
• 5 hours for completion of self-study (including on-line) courses offered by an approved sponsor; each self-study course shall include an examination
• 5 hours for authoring papers published in refereed professional journals or books
• 5 hours for attendance at or participation in a program in Illinois related to the practice of acupuncture, not sponsored by an approved acupuncture CE provider, but approved for CE by the relevant profession (for example, CE classes offered by the American Association of Orthopaedic Medicine, which is an approved CE provider for osteopaths)

Should I include CE attendance certificates with the renewal application?

No, keep your CE attendance certificates.  DPR conducts random audits of renewal applications.  If you are audited, then you will be asked to send copies of your certificates for the Board of Acupuncture to review.

Hours that count in Illinois are not the same as hours that count for NCCAOM.  How do I know which hours count in Illinois?

The Illinois license is a license to practice acupuncture, not a license to practice Oriental Medicine.  Therefore, the only hours that count for the Illinois license are acupuncture hours.  You may take as many hours of herb instruction as you want, but they do not count toward the 30 hours required to renew your license in Illinois.  If you are uncertain whether your hours count or not, ask a member of the Board of Acupuncture for assistance.

By what date must I complete the CE requirement?

All classes that you take between July 1 of one odd-numbered year and June 30 of the next odd-numbered year will count toward the next renewal period.  Specifically, classes taken between July 1, 2007 and June 30, 2009 will count towards renewal on July 1, 2009.

I’m always getting advertisements about “approved” CE courses.  How do I know if a CE sponsor is approved in Illinois?

There are two parts to this answer.

1.  Our Rules and Regulations list sponsors that are automatically approved.  They are the national and state professional associations, and they do not need a CE Sponsor license.

2.  All CE Sponsors who are not national or state professional associations must have an Acupuncture Continuing Education Sponsor license.  This license begins with the prefix “225.”  All licensed CE Sponsors must have this license and can tell you the license number, just as you can tell people your acupuncture license number.  The CE Sponsor license looks just like the Acupuncture license, but it has a different profession number on it.  DPR does not provide a list of licensed Acupuncture CE Sponsors, but it does maintain a website on which you can check whether a CE sponsor has a valid Illinois Acupuncture CE Sponsor license.  Go to the DPR website, www.idfpr.com/dpr, and click on Professional Regulation License Look-up.  Select Acupuncture CE Sponsor license, and type in the name of the sponsor in the appropriate space. The website will tell you whether or not the sponsor has a valid Illinois license.

For your convenience, we have listed Illinois approved and licensed CE sponsors on a page of our website under the title Illinois CE Sponsors.