How to choose a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioner:

Likely the most effective way to find a TCM practitioner is by word of mouth.  Ask someone you know who got good results from who they saw.  

You can also check on the education level and clinical background of the practitioner via the internet.  You can search online to see if you can find some information about the practitioner and see if it jives with the information that they have given you. Note that more education does not necessarily mean that the practitioner will have more skill.   Ability comes from experience not from education, though education is still beneficial.  

Sometimes you can choose a practitioner based on the vibe that you get from the person over the phone or during the inital consultation. You want a practitioner that can answer all of your questions and give you a good explanation of your diagnosis.  A skilled practitioner can make the connection between all of your symptoms and explain the root cause to you.  Trust your intuition.

You also want to ask if the practitioner has herbal medicine in their clinic.  Ideally, you want the practitioner to have a large number of individual herbs available, in addition to patent herbal formulas.  If the practitioner can write you a customized herbal formula from scratch and give you that prescription to take home that day then you know that you have encountered a fully qualified person that can treat you with both acupucture and herbal medicine. This the difference between the designation of acupuncturist versus Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctor (TCMD).