Have you be wondering “Will my insurance cover any of your Integrative Medicine services, labs or prescriptions?”
My short answer is:
“Well, it depends on the kind of insurance you have. We don’t take insurance for the reasons listed below, so you have to pay for our services like any other personal service or product and then try to get reimbursed by your insurance company”
Here’s why we don’t take insurance:
- Practitioners who sign insurance company contracts often discover that they can’t deliver optimum care. Instead, care is rationed.
- Patients must be dismissed by us before they are fully healed because the insurance companies dictate how many visits they will pay for
- Many necessary services aren’t covered because they are considered experimental, especially in the area of prevention, nutrition, and functional lab testing.
- Limiting care is profitable for the insurance company, but it can compromise patient satisfaction–and our reputation.
- To maximize profit, insurance companies hire people to review our recommendations. Most of these “gatekeepers” lack even a working knowledge of functional medicine or clinical nutrition.
- Huge amounts of paperwork are often required. It’s time-consuming, raises costs, and takes us away from our primary mission of helping our patients and clients get and stay well.
- Insurance company contracts also attempt to govern how we run our business.
Your health is your most valuable possession. Please, don’t risk it with a practitioner who may try to serve two masters, or who was merely the lowest bidder.
We will provide you with a statement that you may submit to your insurance carrier for possible reimbursement, but it is up to you to submit the paperwork and deal with the insurance company. Some patients have successfully submitted these for reimbursement of out-of-pocket medical expenses, especially if submitting to a Health Savings Account (flex plan). In any case, our office fees and the lab fees are usually tax-deductible if you itemize health care costs. Speak with your tax preparation person to be certain. This may have changed with the new tax laws.
If you get your lab work done through Quest or Labcorp then they should bill your insurance company.
Updated 11/12/19 – If you have a Health Savings Account or Flexible Spending Account (HSA or FSA) you may be able to use it to pay for labs. Check with your insurance provider, but most allow you to use these accounts for many things including these labs. Simply use the HSA/FSA card as you would any debit or credit card when submitting your samples to the labs.
Dave