Our Process
In this section, you can read about what you can expect if you choose to work with us. Our process is not a quick fix and it is not for everyone! Functional Medicine is for the person that is willing to do the work to make KEY and SPECIFIC changes in their diet and lifestyle in order to feel better. Our role is to help you to figure out just what YOU need to do to bring your body back into balance.
Make a Discovery Call
Visit each provider page and click on the green button. You must speak with the provider before obtaining an appt. We want to make sure we are the right fit.
Before your first appointment
Our practitioners will work with you to develop a complete medical history. Practitioners are trained on how to unravel a complicated and intertwining story into a coherent picture. Generally, clues in the story lead to the identification of key imbalances. We ask our prospective patients to complete a 39-page online intake questionnaire and electronically send all relevant medical records before their first visit. We are a HIPAA compliant organization that utilizes electronic records. Our practitioners will carefully put that information on a timeline before they even meet you.
Your First Appointment
If you have been given an appointment, you will have to do some preparation.
We require your consent to all of our policies before we initiate care. The Function Medicine Intake Packet includes the Office Policy, Informed Consent, and Privacy Policy. When indicated, it may also include a Telemedicine Consent form. If you have Medicare, you must understand that we are NOT Medicare Providers and you must complete the Medicare OPT-OUT Agreement. All of these forms completed electronically in IntakeQ.
We also ask that your primary care provider send records of your last full physical exam, last encounter and blood work or other relevant test results. If you also see a psychiatrist, please have them send your initial evaluation and last encounter.
On the day of your appointment, bring the actual bottles of supplements or medications you are currently taking and/or have taken in the past. We also recommend involving your partner, a family member or a friend in the process. If dietary or other lifestyle changes are required to benefit your health, it is often helpful to involve other family members in the process.
When we meet:
The initial consultation will be a two hour session. If you are already taking supplements, please bring the containers with you so we can look at the ingredients. Prior review of your records will have generated many questions in the minds of the practitioners. The appointment is used to gather more information to fill the gaps in the history and discover when the perfect storm(s) occurred in your life. We will create a treatment plan to reverse the conditions created by those perfect storm(s).
After our first meeting:
Within 48 hours of the first meeting, you will receive a comprehensive and personal treatment plan. This plan often recommends diet and lifestyle modifications, testing, and supplements, when indicated. We have had patients who resolved their conditions simply by adopting dietary changes. We have also had patients who required multiple rounds of testing, treatment and evaluation to get to the root cause of their complaints. As little as six months or as long as two years, and every situation is different. Typically patients report feeling improvements in eight weeks.
Long term:
We will meet periodically to monitor your progress and make changes as we learn more about your specific situation. We recommend that we meet every 6-8 weeks at first, but the frequency will depend on the situation. We will send you a Pre-Appointment Form before each follow-up appointment. Complete this ahead of time to make the best use of your scheduled appointment time. We appreciate you updating your list of supplements and citing your top three concerns. Many patients feel that their problems are resolved after six months and transition to occasional consultations for maintenance. Our practitioners are committed to the long term wellbeing of our patients and will be happy to help as life derailments come your way.