|
|
|
|
About my practice: What is it you want? Better health? Spiritual growth? Being better liked by people? Homeopathy may be able to help you with all this and more. To make this happen, we need to work together and have good understanding of the goals and ways to achieve them. First of all, it will help our work tremendously if you know what you are coming for. Homeopathy is well outside the mainstream understanding of medicine, so it will be useful for you to learn a bit about it if you have not yet done so. You can get the information from my booklet Demystifying Homeopathy. You can read it on line at no charge. If anything in the booklet is unclear, or you just have any questions, please feel free to call me and I will clarify everything. But please be sure you feel very comfortable with the approach before you make the appointment with me. If you would like to get good results, you should not start any other new therapies without a prior consultation with me, especially in the beginning of the process. We need to find the best possible remedy for you and any interference will slow us down significantly. You WILL be able to continue with all the necessary treatments you are receiving now. Before you schedule an appointment, I need to talk to you by phone to make sure Homeopathy is appropriate in your case. Just call the office at 952-933-8900 and ask the receptionist to put me in touch with you. Most patients come in for treatment of some chronic conditions and what follows in the next paragraph applies to these cases. If you have an acute condition, you need results fast, you have a relative in intensive care, etc..., the following discussion of chronic case management will not apply to you, so just call me and we'll discuss what we need to do. Homeopathy may indeed be very useful in your case as well. To take good care of you and ensure the best results, I must see you on a regular basis. In most cases I schedule my first appointment for 2 hours and follow-ups for 1/2 hour. This can be done in person or by a virtual visit. The time I actually spend with you may be more or less than the allotted time. The first follow-up is usually 1 month after the first visit, then we schedule a follow-up about every two months, provided we are getting progress in your case. If we are not seeing enough progress I will want to see you more frequently until we start seeing progress. We may also need to talk on the phone on and off, or email can be utilized for occasional communication. I am easily accessible and I encourage communication between visits whenever there is any question. Homeopathy is often slow to act and in some cases I can't get the best remedy right away. This means that you must be willing to give the treatment plenty of time. In most chronic cases, once on a good remedy, if you are 10-20% better in 6 months of treatment it must be considered good progress. Sometimes it works much faster than that, but it is not the rule. If you decide that Homeopathy does not work for you after just 1 or 2 visits, you will most definitely have wasted your money and effort. Maybe this approach is too “outside of the comfort box” for you? If you are not sure this is what you want to do, please don’t schedule the appointment. Maybe you feel the remedy did not work? It is not for you to decide in the beginning stages of treatment- I am available to discuss it with you at any time. You may feel you are not improving initially, but I may feel otherwise, and will be happy to explain to you why I feel so. I always give it my best effort and want to see you improved. If you quit treatment too soon, you would most definitely lose the investment in health you have already made! Again, make sure this is what you want to do, make sure you can afford an extended course of treatment, call me and ask all the questions that come to your mind; there are no stupid questions. Then come and stick with it. In a great majority of cases it is well worth the investment. Take a look at these cases. It will illustrate for you the range of responses people have to homeopathic remedies and help you develop the correct expectations. Here is what happens when you come. In the first visit we sit and talk for a long time. At this point I want to know everything about you, so I can determine the disease pattern and the remedy to match it. I schedule 2 hours, but take as long as it takes, anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours. I often spend quite a long time during your visit working on the computer. I use several programs that help me sift through a huge database of homeopathic literature to find a remedy that best suits your case. Sometimes my patients get quite bored sitting there and waiting for me to do the searches. Unfortunately, I can't do it any other way. When possible leads pop up in the searches I need you right there in front of me to answer questions to enable me to confirm or rule out certain remedies. In this way we become partners in the process of making you healthier. Follow-ups are usually shorter. Commonly all I need is a few minutes with you to confirm the prescription is working. I schedule 1/2 hour for these visits just in case you have questions or, if the results are unclear, I may need more time to investigate. If the remedy is clearly wrong, we may go quite a bit over the allotted time, so if you are sitting in the waiting room and I am running late, please be understanding: I probably have a difficult case requiring more of my time, and I will do it for you too if needed. I am not a god, so I can not guarantee specific results. However, I can promise the following: if, once we have tried for a reasonable amount of time, you are still not improving, we will make arrangements, where you don't pay any more out of pocket and I will continue working with you until we find the right remedy for you. As soon as I see you are on a good remedy I will resume charging you. This applies to cases where no obvious interference is present, such as steroid or immunosuppressant drugs as well as some other less frequent situations. Charges First visit: $500.00 Follow-up care: $75.00 a month, regardless of the number of visits and other communication with me. This also includes all homeopathic treatment for any acute illnesses you may have between regular visits, done either by phone or in person. Some people are initially unsure about the monthly payment, but think about it: this approach gives me an incentive to work hard and get you better as quickly as possible. If you are clearly on a good remedy and showing improvement, all I need to do is see you briefly every couple of months or so to monitor your progress. On the other hand, if you are having difficulties, I have to see you and talk to you often, change prescriptions, etc., in short, spend a lot more time and effort on your case. I am pretty lazy by nature, so, obviously, if this happens, I am as unhappy as you are: I have to work hard, but not get paid any more. In fact, as I have mentioned above, if we see no progress at all, I stop charging you any out of pocket fees, but work even harder. So, obviously, I always try to get the best remedy as soon as possible, so I can sit back and relax, and watch you improve. Therefore, you are the one to benefit the most from the monthly payment approach: if I make you better, you are happy, and if you have to see me more often than usual, you are happy you don't need to pay me any more. Your homeopathic remedies are included in most cases. The exception may be if you need an acute remedy quick and I either don't have it or you don't want to drive to my office to pick it up. You may then be able to buy it locally for under $10.00. Sometimes people ask, how come we come to see you only every other month, but have to pay monthly? The $75 per month charge came out of the per visit charge of $150 and the usual every other month visit, the way we used to do it in the past. Therefore, if you elected to do it that way and pay per visit (which we discourage), you would not pay any less, and would probably pay more in the long run, because you may need to see me more often than every other month. We have also seen that if you try to come less than at least every other month, your care suffers. We often need to make changes in the care plan, and waiting too long before realizing the changes are needed slows us down. We ask that you arrange for an automatic payment of the monthly charges, such as having us keep your credit card number on file, or setting up an automatic payment with your bank. You can also prepay every time you come for a visit, which should be at least every two months. The follow-up care charge is payable in the beginning of each month of care. We assess the automatic charges on the 1st or the 15th of each month. We can figure out which day applies to you depending on the date of your first visit. You may choose to pay the follow-up care charges automatically via paypal. This is very convenient. Paypal will charge your credit card or your bank account. We don't have access to your credit card, so you don't have to worry it will get in the wrong hands. I've used paypal for many years now for purchases and to receive payments, and can recommend them wholeheartedly. If you would like to set this up, please click on the paypal button below. If you have never used paypal, you may be surprised at how easy it is to use. If you wish, we will be able to help you set it up at the time of your first appointment. You can stop the automatic payment anytime. At the time you make the appointment for the initial visit, my assistant will ask you for the first installment towards the visit charge in the amount of $125.00. It can be paid with a credit card by phone or a check in the mail. Paypal also works. Please click on the following button to pay: This payment is fully refundable if you cancel within 72 hours (3 days) of the scheduled appointment. There will be no refunds if you cancel less then 72 hours before the appointment, but this money can be applied to a future appointment if you reschedule at the time of the cancellation. The balance of the first visit charge in the amount of $375.00 is due at the time of the first visit. This includes the first month of follow-up care. You will pay for the second month of follow-up care and we will set up the automatic payment plan if you so choose at the first follow-up. If you feel this is too expensive, take another look at what you are receiving. You are paying for a comprehensive treatment plan including all communication with me and most remedies. It includes all visits, even if I need to see you more often than usual. All phone calls and email communication with me is included. If you would like to shop around for a less expensive homeopath, be sure to ask about their pricing structure and their guarantee. Are they charging for each phone call and each email? Do they charge for the remedies and how much? Do they continue charging even if the treatment does not work? My answer to all those is NO! I don't want to nickel and dime you. I don't want money to be a reason for you not calling me if there is an issue we need to discuss. Don't forget that you are also paying for the easy access to a licensed medical doctor who can treat you with conventional approaches as well, if necessary, order and review your labs and explain findings, prescribe antibiotics or other drugs in an unusual case when a homeopathic remedy is not taking care of some acute illness, etc. I can intelligently discuss your case with your other physicians and refer you to specialists if necessary. Having said this, I would prefer not to replace your other doctors. Rather, I believe, we should work together to help you be as healthy as you can possibly be. You may also want to compare the expense of homeopathic treatment to that of some other approaches, like naturopathic (where supplement costs will often run into hundreds of dollars per month), chiropractic (which may get expensive due to very frequent visits), Traditional Chinese Medicine (frequent acupuncture sessions and expensive herbal mixtures) and others. Homeopathy is probably the least expensive in the long run. In most cases you will find the results to be well worth it as well. We will enter the following visit codes and charges on the HCFA form (the amounts of actual reimbursement are completely unpredictable): First visit (in person or via video only): 99205, $499.00 (comprehensive
initial doctor visit). All formal phone consultations (not interim phone calls) are billed as 99373. Few insurance carriers will pay for phone calls.
|
|
|
|
