How to check a practitioner's licence in British Columbia

If you are about to see an acupuncturist in British Columbia, you can check their licence before you walk in. Acupuncture and Chinese medicine are regulated professions here, and the regulator keeps a public registry anyone can search. It is free, and it answers two questions at once: is this person currently licensed, and what is this person licensed to do.

The College of Complementary Health Professionals of BC, which regulates chiropractors, massage therapists, naturopathic physicians, and traditional Chinese medicine practitioners and acupuncturists. It formed in June 2024, when those professions came under one regulatory framework, and it regulates more than 14,000 health professionals. It describes its own work in three parts: enforcing professional standards and practices, managing registration and professional development, and managing and responding to public complaints. That last part is worth remembering, because a concern about a licensee goes to the College and not only to the clinic.

They are restricted titles, and in Chinese medicine there are four of them. The College authorises Registered Acupuncturist, written R.Ac.; Registered Traditional Chinese Medicine Herbalist, written R.TCM.H.; Registered Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner, written R.TCM.P.; and Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine, written Dr.TCM. The names carry the distinction: one covers acupuncture, one covers Chinese herbal medicine, and the others cover both. Restricted means the title goes with a licence, so the letters on a card are worth reading rather than skipping. Our founder, Tabasom (Tabi) Mirshahi, R.Ac., R.TCM.P., is listed with her titles on her team page, and she reviews every article here.

Open the College's registry and search with what you already have. It finds licensees by first name, last name, licence number, practice city or postal code, so a name and a city is usually enough. What comes back is the part people skip past. The College says the search provides information on credentials and scope of practice: credentials tell you which title the person holds, and scope tells you what that title covers. If the person you are looking for does not come back at all, that is also an answer.

Use the registry to verify whether an individual is currently licensed with the College. The search provides information on credentials and scope of practice.

College of Complementary Health Professionals of BC, For the Public

Because the numbers changed this autumn. The College moved to a new licensing portal and is assigning new licence numbers in phases, profession by profession. Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners and acupuncturists were assigned theirs on September 2, and massage therapists on October 5, 2026. Every licensee has until March 31, 2027 to transition to the new number. So a number written on a receipt, a card or an older letter may not be the number in the registry today. Search by name instead, and the number you find is the current one.

Several treatments a clinic offers are comfort and relaxation services rather than regulated Chinese medicine, and the registry is the wrong place to look those up. Here, the Relaxation Massage page names the person who performs it as a DDS Bio-Current Technician and Body Worker, which is the honest description: it is not registered massage therapy and it is not acupuncture. The treatments to check in the registry are the ones a registrant performs, and at this clinic those are Acupuncture, Fertility Acupuncture, Cupping Therapy and the TCM Lymphatic Drainage Treatment.

• Search the College registry by the practitioner's name and practice city.
• Read the title, then read the scope of practice beside it.
• Search by name, never by a licence number from an older document.
• Ask the clinic which of its treatments a registrant performs.
• See your family physician first about any new or changing symptom.

Our clinic is on Mainland Street in Yaletown, a short walk from Downtown Vancouver, the West End and False Creek, and the Yaletown page carries the route notes. Acupuncture here is performed only by a registrant, and it is not open for new bookings at the moment: the Acupuncture treatment page says the practitioners who offer it have no openings for new patients right now, and you can join the waitlist there to hear as soon as a time opens up. The registry, meanwhile, is open today, and the name you are thinking of booking is either in it or it is not.