Union Acupuncture Center

I want to share my painful personal experience with this business and «Dr» Mah.
1. Mah treats cancer and other serious disease by just looking at patient’s tongue and taking pulse. Yes, I am serious. That’s ALL he does.
2. He always push to sell/​prescribe extremely overpriced herbal medicines. These medicines are NOT FDA approved. I don’t think they are even legal for sale in the United States. I had a a pharmacist friend exam one of his medicine and
was told these are merely some grape-​seed (or other fruit) extract. (sold to me for $ 6 per capsule)
Mah refuses to tell me production location, active ingredient and other detailed information of his medicine/​drug.
Earlier this year, my mother was diagnosed with stage 3 stomach cancer. She had a total gastrectomy surgery (stomach removed). Her chemotherapy was not working effectively so I took her to see «Dr» Mah.
We agreed to Mah’s treatment plan and enrolled into his program. The price was $ 480 per month which includes herbal medicines and Mah’s exclusive «anticancer» capsule called «Tianxian/​Goddness #1» .
In August, my mother began to have jaundice. So Mah prescribed more herbs and medicines for my mother to use daily. These drugs cost me additional $ 400 (out of pocket) per week. In couple weeks, my mother’s jaundice got much worse.
In September My mother was experiencing itchiness on her chest and back. Mah prescribed some herbal paste/​ointment and told me mother to spread it on her infected area. 2 days later, the result was horrible. I had to take my mother to ER. Diagnosis concluded my mother had shingle… it was a huge mistake to use Mah’s herbal ointment instead of acyclovir.
We have been paying nearly $ 2000 every month to Mah. My mother’s health has deteriorated rapidly. Mah keeps prescribe me additional drugs that cost ridiculous amount of money. I guess he wants to squeeze every drop of profit out of my mother.
My mother is now enrolled in hospice… I will looking for a lawyer to see if there is anything can be done to his scam artist/​fake doctor.
I want to give 0 star.

Oh where should I start
So I came in 1:20 for my 1:30 appointment, since it’s my first time, the receptionist took my insurance card and started calling my insurance to check whether I am covered for Acupuncture or not…
It turned out I am not… that wasn’t the problem,
While she was checking with the insurance, a guy came in, first pick up his medicine — -left the place and came back 3 min later started asking all the charges and claims to his insurance company and wanted to have the doctor to explain to him…
So I guess Doctor Mah is very nice, took him to his office started to explain…
45 MIN WAIT for me!!!
I am SUPER SUPER PISSED!
the receptionist kept telling me «i am sorry, it’s an emergency»
HEY GUESS WHAT? I UNDERSTAND CHINESE! AND ASKING ABOUT CLAIMS ISN’T REALLY EMERGENCY!
if walk-​in considers more important than appointment, that is what i am going to do next time!!!
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But dr. mah is a very good doc and I tend to focus on that person’s good character than their mistakes. so I may go back…
Let me try the med he gave me…

Union Acupuncture Center in San Mateo has been around upwards of 8 years and has been through a name change some years ago (previously known as A-​Center, which really isn’t the best name).
They currently have a promotion going on for an initial free consultation and walk-in’s are welcome (just sign in and wait if need be). At first, this seemed like a great draw for those of us with A$IAN CHEAPNE$$ INFLUENZA, getting the most bang for your buck without getting banged in the rear.
I saw Dr Feng in attempts to seek out alternative opinions and perhaps eventual cures to some allergic ailments I have. She is supposedly their in house specialist but unfortunately only speaks Mandarin and limited English. Perhaps her modus operandi is different from that of other Chinese medicine doctors I’ve experienced, but she had to write down much of my information and ask me more questions before taking my pulse. Odd, because other doctors elsewhere would have just asked for name, date of birth, maybe one or two questions, then hit the pulse reading and nail the problem, including telling me things I didn’t know.
However I was told of things I kind of already knew.
Like eat less spicy foods.
But avoid drinking hot drinks (really hot) was a new one to me.
I inquired about iced drinks and she said, no problem. However that wasn’t the case with two other Chinese doctors I’ve seen in past years who said warm/​hot drinks better, no iced drinks!
In the end I got prescribed dry mountain yam, to put in congee (2 pieces per serving), which she said would help. But she recommended accupuncture sessions, which averaged $ 50 per visit, and also herbs ($ 6 per pack, could be used twice per day).
The sad part was that she expected major improvement over a 3 month ish period.
I decided to decline the needle treatment, and just try the herbs.
Well that surely wasn’t the best $ 25 spent! It took a while for the doctor to prepare the herbs, which had to be prepped from scratch. Each ingredient had to be weighed, pulled out from the numerous drawers against the wall by the cashier area, then poured into brown paper bags. For $ 6 the amount of herbs seem siginficantly less than a really good place I went to in Southern California. In addition cooking these herbs ended up being messy because the dried ingredients were loose and thus removing them from the pot entirely after usage required more time and effort. So cleanup was hell. The mess would have been avoided if they were able to provide a cookable bag that held the ingredients together (like a mesh).
I’m not terribly keen on going back at this moment.
But I’m awarding an extra star, only because of Dr Jeffrey Mah who has his main office here (and he also works in a Mountain View office sometimes). He’s the cancer specialist, and is supposedly regarded as a national gem back in Beijing where he learned the craft (and how he was able to leave for the US I don’t know). He could also be one of very few, if not the only one in the Bay Area trained in cancer research and accupuncture/​Chinese medicine. While he cannot provide miracle cures, his knowledge of the needle, and where and how to apply it to alleviate the symptoms and side effects of chemotherapy are rather astounding. He has written a book on the subject, although entirely in shorthand Chinese form ($ 22).
More information about Dr Mah’s office and department here: