Wellness searches for new levels of excellence.
Digital Requirements
We use an electronic medical record, and communicate mostly through our patient portal. After each visit, a summary of recommendations will be available to you in your portal. Please make sure you are comfortable with this. You will need a valid email address and have just enough computer savvy to check your email and log-in to the portal in order to get the most benefit from our practice.
Virtual visits are an option, and are scheduled exactly like regular in-office visits. Make sure to check with your insurance company regarding their rules on reimbursement for virtual visits, as not all insurances cover them.
Insurance
None of the providers at Vitality Renewal Functional Medicine are contracted with insurance companies–they are out-of-network providers. If you have a PPO insurance, you may submit a form to your insurance to recoup a portion of your costs. We will provide you with the necessary codes in the form of a “super bill”. HMO insurances do not reimburse for out-of-network providers.
Medicare Information
Vitality Renewal Functional Medicine does not participate in Medicare. If you are a Medicare Part B beneficiary and wish to become a patient, per Medicare guidelines you are required to accept the terms and conditions set forth in a Private Contract between you and the practice. This Private Contract provides that absolutely no Medicare payments will be made to you or to Vitality Renewal Functional Medicine for the services provided, even if such services are normally covered by Medicare. Under the Private Contract, you acknowledge that you accept full responsibility for the payment of charges for all services rendered by the providers.
Lab Testing
Most insurances will cover testing from conventional labs. Your provider may also recommend testing from research and functional-medicine lab companies, which may not be covered. You will be advised of the reason for the testing and possible out-of-pocket expenses of functional-medicine labs prior to committing to do them. Insurance companies may deem that some labs are “experimental” and deny coverage. If coverage for labs is crucial to you, you should contact your insurance company to inquire. In general, we do not do pre-approval requests for labs, as it has been our experience that if the company requires this the answer is universally “not covered” for reasons of being considered “experimental”. We DO have the option for in-office testing at about a 90% cash discount for those who have no coverage or poor coverage for labs.
Late Arrival/Cancellation
At least 2 business-days notice is required for cancellations. We are reserving time for you in our schedule, and potentially turning patients away to give you a reserved appointment time. If you cancel less than 2 business-days before your appointment time, or no-show an appointment, you will be charged $100.
Test Results
We will notify you if any of your lab results require urgent action. Otherwise, test results will be reviewed at your next scheduled appointment. Results for test kits that are sent to specialized labs generally have a 3-4 week turnaround time, so please be sure to schedule a follow up appointment approximately 4 weeks from the time you submit test kits.
Primary Care Physician
We can serve as your primary care provider, with the exception that we do not do acute-care visits. If you need an acute-care visit you would have to go to an immediate care or similar facility.
We only accept clients we believe will be successful with our approach. For this reason, we require an application and a Vitality Review as a prerequisite to acceptance into the practice.
Expect to spend about 20 minutes discussing your concerns and we will give you an honest assessment of whether we think we can help you achieve your goals.