Shelley Heinley, Patient Coordinator and Martha M Grout, MD, MD(H)
The
Huffington Post reports on September 29th, 2015, that the hypothetical costs of health
insurance for a family of four with employer-sponsored health insurance
rose by 5.4% in 2015. This is in the face of rising rates of diabetes
and chronic illness, rising rates of cancer, and general unhealthiness
in our population. It seems a shame, to spend so much money on "health"
insurance only to find that it really only covers disease management.
Health maintenance is a much more rewarding thing to work on. Our practice is fully committed to the concept of Functional Medicine - the art of discovering the root cause of illness in dysfunction of the body, and correcting that which is not functioning so that the body may heal.
Many people call us after visiting our website. We look for the underlying cause of the symptom and work to return the body to homeostasis, rather than merely prescribe drugs to cover up the symptom. Most practitioners have 15 minutes in which to see and treat patients because they are under contract with insurance companies. People, especially very sick people, would doubtless like to have a doctor to listen to them for as long as it takes to cover their medical history and to find the root cause to the problem.
The sad fact about our health care and insurance industry is that insurance companies appear to drive treatment decisions, not the patient or the doctor, if they are committed to operating within that insurance-driven mode.
There is a way to receive the care you deserve and even to use your insurance, if you have an out of network privilege in your insurance contract. Most PPOs include out of network privileges. You would need to pay for the visit (which for new patients entails at least an hour with the doctor) and then submit for reimbursement to your insurance. Many of our patients use the services of a 3rd party biller to submit to insurance. The fees are very reasonable considering that the biller does all the work and gets patients the maximum possible reimbursement.
Call us at 480-240-2600 to learn more.