Policies

As Vital Roots is a small office and only open a few days a week, there is no full time receptionist at this point. Calls will be checked several times daily and emails and text communication once daily, except on weekends.  For simple questions, emails or texts are preferable and will not have a charge.   Email is a convenient way to communicate but you will be asked to sign a consent form to communicate by non-encrypted email. If there are frequent or extensive emails that require multiple responses or research outside of an office visit, I would reserve the right to charge.  Legally, I can only offer health advice to patients that are part of my office practice at Vital Roots.  If you are transferring from Mountain Medical Arts, you will need an office visit with me at Vital Roots to establish a chart, which will be an hour office visit before I can offer medical care or medication refills.

Appointment availability and scheduling
This is a private solo practice currently accepting new consultations and those who seek to transfer care.  At this time I am seeing patients mainly on Wednesdays but will be opening more days in August.  Please call me to arrange an appointment. It is important that appointment times are scheduled in advance, so I can give each person my undivided attention.  If requested, I can provide an invoice with the appropriate coding for you to submit to your insurance.
Phone appointments are also available for my established patients, and may be scheduled on days that I am not traditionally in the office. They are the same cost as an in-person visit but are billed at 15 minute intervals.  Insurance will not accept an invoice for phone appointments.
**Please seek assistance at the Emergency room or Urgent Care for medical emergencies.
 

Insurance/ Payment
I do not bill any insurance for my services, including Medicare or Medicaid. This means that consult fees will be “out-of-pocket” rendered at or before time of service.  Your insurance may or may not reimburse you for “out-of-network” expenses incurred.    I will provide on your receipt  the necessary information so that you may file for reimbursement. Reimbursement for any claims is between you and your insurance company. You are responsible for obtaining the correct claim forms from your insurance and completing them correctly so that any reimbursement is promptly processed. Vital Roots is not responsible for non-payment by your insurance company.  
In person payment is also accepted at the time of service, with exact cash or check (which I prefer) or I can run your credit card at your office visit.
If you would like to prepay online you can securely pay for charges with your credit card or bank card with squareup.com (download link-pending)

Cancellation/ Late Policy
Your commitment to your health and your appointment time is necessary for us to have a successful healing partnership.  

If you need to cancel or reschedule a new patient appointment, please notify me within 48 hours.  If it is not cancelled within 48 hours, I will request for you to pre-pay for the visit if you choose to reschedule.

If you are an established patient, please notify me within 24 hours if you need to cancel or reschedule an appointment.    

If you do not show for your appointment (and do not communicate with me prior), your next appointment will need to be prepaid.  I will also consider an appointment missed if you have not arrived within 20 minutes of your appointment time and haven't contacted me.  If you are late, you will still be charged for the time frame that was allotted, and the appointment will not be extended past the designated schedule.

Labs
Vital Roots can write orders for your labs to be drawn with standard labs through Quest as well as other facilities as and functional medicine laboratories.  Some of those facilities can file your insurance if they participate with your insurance.   If you don’t have insurance, cash pay pricing is available for some of the facilities.  Currently, I am negotiating an extremely affordable cash pay price for labs with Quest, if not filed with insurance. 

Labs are ordered for active Vital Roots patients and results are typically reviewed together at an office visit., alhtough you may receive a call or email if there are no abnormalities.  Some of the complicated testing (like the NeuroScience evaluations) have an additional charge for interpretation but you will be notified of this when I discuss them with you.

Prescription Refills
Please check to see if you are due for refills prior to your visit and I can manage them easily at that time.  If you are contacting me in between appointments for a refill by phone call or email, I will need your DOB, the name of the medicine, your dosage and the name of your pharmacy since I will not be escribing/faxing prescriptions.  If this is a prescription another health care provider has written for you, it is preferred that you contact them for a refill unless you have transferred care. It is preferred, we discuss it at your office visit before I fill it.  In general I do not prescribe very many controlled substances and am not likely to take over that kind of prescribing.

If you have not been seen within a year, you will need an office visit before I can provide a refill.