Many people who have contacted the office for our services have asked why we do not bill insurance directly when other medical and naturopathic providers do.  I fully understand the financial challenge this presents to some patients and I wish there were a way for us to bill your insurance company.  Unfortunately, at this time, there is not. Here is why:
When clinics bill health insurance companies directly, doctors are required to become participating providers.  The doctors must sign a contract that allows the insurance company to determine which services they will and will not provide and how much they can charge for those services.  They are heavily invested in the conventional model of health care that too often relies on drugs and surgery.  We are committed to the functional medicine model that addresses the underlying causes of your symptoms with specific nutritional and lifestyle recommendations.
A participating provider must agree to accept fees the insurance company establishes, regardless of whether the fees are reasonable or applicable to that practice.  In general, these established fees cover the actual cost of the briefest (and we believe the lowest quality) care.  Doctors who are participating providers are required to accept discounted fees for their services, and they cannot bill the patient for the difference between their fee and what the insurance company will pay.  Therefore, the clinic must write off the difference, often as much as 50% or more of the doctor’s fee for service.  At the same time, the participating provider’s office overhead costs have increased dramatically because of the staff, time, and equipment necessary for processing and tracking claims.
In today’s healthcare environment, the actual cost for doctors to provide services continues to rise, while the percentage of reasonable fees that insurance payments cover is declining.  At the same time, the profits of health insurance companies and the salaries of their top executives continue to rise to record levels.
Most doctors and clinics cope with the requirements of being participating providers by keeping their office visits very brief, so that they can see many patients within a given time frame.  When their clinic becomes unprofitable, it must be supported by another institution.  Most primary care medical clinics are not self-sustaining financially and have had to merge with hospitals whose expensive, high-tech surgical and diagnostic procedures are priced to keep the clinics afloat.  Most other independent clinics keep office visits very brief and see many people per hour.  Ironically, some of my patients complain about their extremely brief and unsatisfactory office visits in other medical practices described, while at the same time expressing frustration that I do not accept insurance.  Unfortunately, I have found that I cannot be a participating provider in the insurance networks and provide time-intensive, well-researched, expert intensive care that I do.