Frequently Asked Questions
1. Do you take insurance?
No, health insurance, Medicaid and Medicare are not accepted at Innate Health Integrative and Internal Medicine or by Dr. Hussain (“Innate Health”).
We focus on attentive listening at length, detailed analysis before, during and after the visit, researching medical literature as needed for your specific conditions and carefully personalizing treatment plans using a range of healthcare modalities. In order to offer this depth of care, substantially longer than average visits and preparation times are required for your care. Each patient’s presentation is studied as a unique case. Additionally certain Integrative modalities are not covered by health insurance at all. Due to our detail oriented and combined modality approach, we have found that we are not able to remain within insurance networks and offer the same level of care. Our patient approach is simply not something we are willing to compromise.
We believe that taking time especially at the beginning of an evaluation, and paying attention to details, are critical investments in a patient’s journey to improved health and sense of wellbeing. We endeavor to accomplish this by serving you, instead of the insurance industry.
In short, our practice ethos is that it is better to strive to get things right at the beginning of an evaluation and move forward, rather than offer multiple costly and sometimes unnecessary visits, tests and referrals because there wasn’t enough time to listen from the start.
2. Which patients are drawn to your practice?
At Innate Health, we see women who have tried and have been disappointed by conventional medical care covered by the health insurance industry. They have either;
· observed only a partial improvement in health,
· experienced a lack of cohesive and coordinated care between multiple subspecialists,
· not had their conditions or treatment rationale explained to them to their satisfaction or
· not felt heard in their preventative health concerns.
What these factors have in common is that they all stem from the quest to recover from feeling chronically unwell, or a desire to be chronically healthy! The benefit of using a functional or eastern traditional medicine approach is that a common basis for multiple symptoms, traits or disease entities are sought, whether it is through examining imbalances at the molecular level or through examining aberrations from the normal constitution. At Innate Health we combine this with the practice of Internal medicine which is adept at ascertaining manifested disease states and risk factors. With this approach, it is our hope to address an expanded spectrum of diseases bringing together the best of both worlds.
3. What do I need to bring to my first appointment?
By the time you are seen by Dr. Hussain, you would have filled out your health history form. This constitutes the lion’s share of preparation for your first appointment!
The only things we ask that you bring in are;
all medicines and supplements containers that you currently take
any medical, laboratory or imaging records that may be in your possession.
your health insurance card for initial registration only.
You may also find it useful to bring a notebook and pencil with prepared questions and a friend or family member if this is helpful to you.
If you are a male patient, you must attend your appointment with a chaperone.
4. Is there a cancellation policy?
Yes, in order to maximize the time we have to address our patients’ needs, we ask that you provide us with at least 24 hours’ notice if you must cancel an appointment so that we can reschedule your appointment to a more convenient time, and allow your cancelled appointment to be given to someone else.
We respect both your time and our own. In the event that we do not receive at least 24 hours’ notice from you and your appointment is missed, we reserve the right to retain the $100 booking deposit for a first visit, and charge $50 if the appointment was for a subsequent visit. The booking deposit is normally applied towards the fee for the first visit only and covers the detailed preparation prior to your appointment. For more information on our financial policies, click here.
5. What happens if I am late?
Life happens. We understand, and ask that you contact us to notify us as soon as possible. You can call us at 913-521 3335, or email us at Info@InnateHealthMD.com.
If you arrive late for your consultation, we will still see you, however your appointment will end at the scheduled time. This means that you will be charged for the length of your originally scheduled visit even though your visit time will be shortened by your late arrival and an extra appointment may have to be scheduled to complete your assessment.
Appointments for procedures must be rescheduled if you arrive more than 5 minutes late as treatments such as acupuncture, for example, take a set amount of time once initiated and cannot be shortened. In this case a missed appointment fee of $50 will be charged to your credit or debit card.
6. What is Integrative Medicine?
Integrative Medicine refers to the integration of complementary modalities into conventional medical care. This approach honors the usefulness of both methods of practice while tailoring an appropriately balanced combination of care as indicated, in an individualized fashion.
The Federation of State Medical Boards (2002) defines the terms “complementary” and “conventional” in the following way:
Complementary and Alternative Therapies in Medical Practices (CAM)
CAM refers to a broad range of healing philosophies (schools of thought), approaches and therapies that mainstream Western (conventional) medicine does not commonly use, accept, study, understand, or make available. A few of the many CAM practices include the use of acupuncture, herbs, homeopathy, therapeutic massage, and traditional Oriental medicine to promote well-being or treat health conditions. People use CAM treatments and therapies in a variety of ways. Therapies may be used alone, as an alternative to conventional therapies, or in addition to conventional, mainstream therapies, in what is referred to as a complementary or an integrative approach. Many CAM therapies are called holistic, which generally means they consider the whole person, including physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects.
Conventional Medical Practices
Conventional medical practices refer to those medical interventions that are taught extensively at U.S. medical schools, generally provided at U.S. hospitals, or meet the requirements of the generally accepted standard of care.
7. Can I register with Innate Health for my Primary Care?
Unfortunately, we do not undertake Primary Care at Innate Health. Although Dr. Hussain may address issues affecting your general health, and may prescribe treatments for incidental conditions that arise during your health assessments, the practice is focused on a complementary, holistic and integrative approach to medicine.
You are advised to be under the concurrent care of a conventional Primary Care physician. For more details on our practice policies, click the button below.
8. What forms of payment are accepted?
We accept cash, credit and debit cards. HSA funds may also be used but it is your responsibility to determine whether your HSA funds cover a particular service, test, visit or procedure ahead of time.
9. How do I sign up?
We register new patients through our patient portal online. All required forms are completed and payments are made through our secure electronic medical records system via the patient portal. If you are having difficulty, please contact us so we can help you with the online process, or we can arrange for you to come in a week early so that we can assist you in completing the required forms at our office. All forms must be completed and submitted a minimum of 7 days prior to the appointment time.
For more information regarding our registration process, please visit our New Patient Page.
To begin the registration process, click here to be redirected to our registration page.
10. Is diagnostic testing included in your fees?
We offer both conventional medical testing and advanced functional medical testing. We do not perform any of these tests or collect specimens at our office so they are not included in our fees. Instead, conventional medical testing is normally covered by health insurance and Medicare, even though we do not accept these insurance methods ourselves. Health insurance does not typically cover advanced functional medicine testing, although there are some exceptions. Instead HSA funds may be used to cover the cost of these investigations, depending on your coverage.
11. Do you provide supplements?
A core approach of our practice is beginning with lifestyle and dietary change. Supplements are not necessarily required for everyone to complement these changes nor would they be appropriate for certain individuals. In the situations where supplementation is thought to be beneficial, Dr. Hussain will make specific recommendations based on her knowledge and experience. She recommends therapeutic grade supplements which often differ greatly in their efficacy as compared to over the counter supplements. The reason for this is that the supplement industry is not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the quality of products can vary significantly based on the individual supplement company’s internal compounding and manufacturing practices.
For your convenience, you may purchase recommended supplements through Innate Health, however, you are in no way obligated to do so. We price the supplements at significantly below MSRP and maintain a low mark-up on our cost in order to cover our expenses in providing this service.
12. What is your fee schedule?
Click here for our fee schedule.
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