Q&A About Our Practice

1. What is your overall goal for my first visit to your office? Why should I visit your office?

Our overall goal is to listen to your health concerns and provide integrated health care – giving you the choice of natural and/or medical treatments. Our health care providers “listen” both medically and holistically so that we can create well-balanced, holistic solutions for you. We are well published in the general community and medical and natural medicine arenas and are looked upon as leaders in our respective fields having written many books and articles. We are researchers and dedicated individuals who want to see you succeed in your health endeavors. Please consult our About Us section for more of our qualifications. We have even developed our patent-pending software programs that help us individualize our treatment approaches for you. Our patients enjoy 24-7 access to our health care providers as we provide both our email and cell numbers.

2. What types of therapies and approaches do you offer?

For a detailed list of the types of therapies and services we offer please consult the Services section and the Consultation section listed in the navigation above. In short, we provide a wide array of services, including focused and specialized consultations, individualized laboratory values, computerized and personalized laboratory interpretation and give lifestyle, food, exercise and nutritional supplement suggestions. We provide these services in a targeted and individualized way for a large number of health problems (Please consult the Services and Consultations portions of our website for more information).

3. What will my first visit at your office be like?

During this initial consultation we will likely recommend laboratory work and other types of tests, with your approval beforehand, to help support our suspicions and to help us further investigate your health concerns.

4. Can your doctors use blood and other lab tests I have already performed?

Yes, as long as your tests are no older than three (3) months old. You are free to provide us any laboratory work and tests that you have done beforehand keeping in mind that our individualized approach works best when additional tests are requested. You can refuse any additional tests that we suggest; and we promise to do the very best we can towards improving your health and wellbeing regardless.

5. Do I have to perform laboratory work at your office?

No. You are welcome to have us recommend specific laboratory work to you based on our detailed medical and nutritional intake. We will gladly provide you with a prescription sheet to have laboratory work at an independent lab or our primary healthcare provider or any other location of your choice. Keep in mind that blood work is almost always 100% covered in our office even if we are out of network providers based on your health insurance plan as we are a Quest and Enzo Lab.

6. If I had lab work done within the last six months is it too old to use for your consideration now?

Not necessarily. Although we prefer laboratory work to be performed within a three month period of time prior to our visit, laboratory work performed even years before or certainly six months before may add valuable information. We often find problems that we can address in laboratory work you have had performed elsewhere that has been missed or underappreciated.

7. Can you recommend laboratory work for me prior to my initial consultation?

No. Although there are some basic tests we might recommend for everyone, for example a CBC and chemistry, even these tests are not the same from lab to lab. More importantly, testing should be based on the uniqueness of each person which includes, but is not limited to, past health and medical history, current health concerns and future health goals, scientific literature, results of prior tests and based upon a discussion of future potential natural solutions.

8. Can’t I have all of my testing done at my primary doctor’s office?

Yes and No. You are welcome to have all of your blood work performed at your primary doctor’s office, but there is usually no need because we do not charge you for your blood work from the major labs such as Quest and Enzo. Because our work is very complex it often involves familiarity on the part of the medical office drawing the blood to avoid errors in processing it. We may ask you to perform other tests that your insurance accepted blood lab does not do as well as other tests that do not involve blood work. Bottom line – if we know that you can receive reimbursement for certain tests we will recommended you to your network doctors. We have no interest in doing tests that will cost you out-of-pocket that you can get coverage for elsewhere. Remember, we discuss openly with you prior to all testing what seems the best way to go regarding testing and coverage.

9. Who will I meet during my initial consultation?

You will meet with either Dr. Shah, the medical director and/or Dr. Michael Wald, the Director of Nutritional Services and/or Mr. Sunny Seward, our primary nutritional consultant. Depending on your health issues one or more of our practitioners will work with you. If you have a special request for one or another practitioner please let our front desk know this PRIOR to your initial appointment.

10. What is the cost of the initial consultation and how long are the appointments?

The initial consultation is $425.00. This is a medical consultation and “integrated consultation” (meaning it includes our holistic perspective and approaches) that can be billed to your insurance company. If your insurance company allows you to see out of network doctors most insurance will reimburse directly to you approximately 85% of the cost of the consultation, but this is not guaranteed. The follow-up consultation is $195 and is an hour long. Subsequent consultations are generally 30 minutes in length and cost $120. Extended consultations may be slightly more, but this depends on your particular needs, your ability to comply with our recommendations and based on how much information you can take in at any one consultation. All consultations are scheduled at specific lengths ahead of the appointment. Please see our New Patient Paperwork for more details.

11. How long will my second (follow up appointment) be and subsequent appointments)?

The second appointment is known as your, Report of Findings as we will review the results of your tests and discuss with you our thoughts about how we should consider moving forward; and Health recommendations are given during this visit. You are encouraged to bring a trusted friend or family member with you during this appointment for support and clarification of all discussed. Regularly scheduled follow up appointments, whether they are in person or by phone or video-chat, is $120 for each thirty-minute appointment. Extended appointments (if additional time is required) are $165.

The second appointment is known as your, Report of Findings as we will review the results of your tests and discuss with you our thoughts about how we should consider moving forward; and Health recommendations are given during this visit. You are encouraged to bring a trusted friend or family member with you during this appointment for support and clarification of all discussed. Regularly scheduled follow up appointments, whether they are in person or by phone or video-chat, is $120 for each thirty-minute appointment. Extended appointments (if additional time is required) are $165.

12. Do you give dietary advice, nutritional supplement and exercise advice?

Yes. Our recommendations include detailed food instructions often in the form of general guidelines specific to your needs and also daily food suggestions. We provide nutritional supplement advice based upon your health history, current level of health and health goals plus detailed lab and other tests – that that all recommendations are specific to your needs and not generalized.

13. How often will I need to consult with or visit with you?

The number of appointments/consultations and their frequency is based on your health issues; our plan of action; how well you can make healthful changes; receive education and other factors. We will give you an estimate how we feel we can best serve you during your follow up consultation.

14. Can I bring someone along with me to my consultations? Absolutely!

You’re welcome to bring friends or family members or anyone else that you feel will help you manage most effectively your appointment time; clarify all information discussed or for moral support.

15. What methods of payment do you accept?

We accept payments in the form of credit cards, including Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express. Cash or money order is also acceptable. We also offer Care Credit, which is a no interest loan for one year that we often obtain instant approval at the time of your visits if you like.

16. Do you accept Medicare?

Medicare will cover the cost of laboratory work directly 100%; meaning, that there is no money out of the pocket you must pay for blood work from Quest Labs or Enzo Labs (the two labs that we use); but exceptions might apply.

17. Do you recommend intravenous nutrition for all of your patients?

No. Intravenous nutrition is recommended exclusively for those people with health issues that may not respond reasonably well to improvements in food and oral nutritional supplements. The choice to receive intravenous nutrition is always yours even when it is recommended. We will strive to give excellent health suggestions even if a person chooses not to receive recommended intravenous or intramuscular nutrition.

18. Will you talk with my other doctors regarding my care if I want you to?

Absolutely. We are more than happy to communicate by phone, Skype or e-mail with any and all of your healthcare providers in the interest of improving your quality of healthcare that you receive.

19. Do you recommend vitamin supplements to all of your patients?

Generally yes. However, if a person comes to see us and lets us know that they do not wish to take concentrated nutritional supplements and only wish to have dietary improvements, then we will, of course, not recommend nutritional supplements. We do believe that diet is often insufficient, particularly in the case of chronic health problems, to make up for the extreme nutritional inadequacies of many people. Dr. Wald wrote an excellent article for this on this topic in the Examiner newspaper, which you can find under the article section of this website.

20. How is diet individualized for each person?

There is no ideal diet. Food suggestions are always based on providing the most reasonable suggestions for each person. It does not serve us or our patients well if we recommend extreme food plans that no rational or sane person could ever continue with for a lifetime. There are instances when more difficult food plans, including juicing, might be recommended for periods of time because we strongly feel it is necessary. For the most part, however, our approach involves careful medical and nutritional health assessment as well as our patent-pending Blood Detective laboratory interpretation, to tailor dietary and/or oral nutritional supplements for each person.

21. Do you work with children?

Yes. We believe it’s best to improve the health of children so that they may enjoy a high quality of life physically, mentally and emotionally, not to mention to help ward off future risk of degenerative diseases. Dietary changes and/or liquid nutritional suggestions may be recommendations in general, but all suggestions are individualized.

22. Do you provide a no-cost opportunity to speak with your office about possible therapies and approaches?

Yes. We are proud to offer a no cost “opportunity consultation” either by phone or in person during which you may ask any questions and voice any concerns you may have regarding your care and what approaches might be for you. In this way, we get to determine whether or not we are the best office for you; and if we believe that we are not, we will happily refer you to one or another of our colleagues in your best interest. If we believe that you are a good “fit” for our philosophies and approaches we will invite you to schedule as a new patient. We strongly suggest that you visit us in person for these 15 minute consultations so that you can judge firsthand whether or not we are the individuals you want to share your health efforts with.

23. Do you provide health consultations to those at a distance from your office?

Yes. We provide distance consultations to patients in other towns, cities, states and even countries. Through phone, video chat systems such as Skype we schedule patients as if they were present in our office. We likely recommend testing that the individual can have performed at their location and have the results sent to us for our interpretation. Please visit our, Contact Us section of the website for more on our Distance Consultation Option.