New Patient Information
Thank you for your interest in Dr. Goldberg’s practice. We look forward to helping you achieve and maintain good health through Integrative and Functional Medicine. To avoid any confusion about the services offered, please review this document and acknowledge the office policies and procedures.
Sharon Goldberg is Board Certified in Internal Medicine; however, she practices Integrative and Functional Medicine. This approach aims to identify and treat root causes of disease, and in many cases, differs from conventional “standard of care” for many conditions. For this reason, physicians who are not trained in Integrative, Functional or Environmental Medicine approaches may disagree with and/or disparage the treatment plan because they are not familiar with the evidence to support such interventions.
Working with an Integrative/Functional Physician means partnering to co-create health and understanding that, with some exceptions, recovering from chronic illness generally takes a long time. It also requires hard work on your part. All treatment plans are personalized, but as a general idea they may include dietary modifications such as removing gluten, dairy, sugar and ensuring an organic/GMO free diet, dietary supplements, lifestyle modifications to optimize sleep/wake cycles, and environmental modifications to decrease your exposure to everyday toxins. Functional lab testing is ordered to inform and guide the treatment plan.
Financial policy
Dr. Goldberg does not accept any commercial insurance, Medicare or Medicaid. Payment for professional services is due at the time of service and is billed at the hourly rate of $360.00, to the nearest 15-minute increment. Initial consultation fee is $540, with payment required at the time of scheduling. Follow-up visits are billed by time, at the hourly rate, and generally vary in length from 30-60 minutes. A 3% service fee is applied to all electronic transactions. No fee applies to check payments.
Insurance
We will not be billing your insurance company; however, a superbill is provided upon request should you wish to submit to your insurance company for possible reimbursement. Dr. Goldberg is considered an out of network provider. Reimbursement, if any, will depend on the out of network benefits of your particular health plan. Superbills are only available for patients who are reside in New Mexico or Florida – the states where Dr. Goldberg is licensed. Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries are not eligible for superbills. To determine if you are eligible for out of network provider reimbursement, contact your insurance carrier directly.
Additional fees that you will incur include:
- Lab Fees – For lab testing ordered from specialty labs.
- Supplements – Each patient is given a discounted Fullscript account (25% off MSRP), many but not all of the recommended supplements can be purchased via Fullscript.
- Electronic Communication – Complex emails/portal messages are billed at the hourly rate, based on the time required to read and respond. There is no charge for emails that can be answered with a “yes or no” answer, or take less than 1-2 minutes to read and respond to. Telephone calls, when patient initiated, are billed at the hourly rate.
- Expanded Medical Record Review – Rarely needed, applied only if you ask Dr. Goldberg to review > 35 pages of prior medical records.
- Additional Services – Letter writing for requesting ADA based medical accommodations or other purposes such as to appeal an insurance lab denial is billed at the hourly rate.
Cancellation Policy
If you need to cancel or reschedule an appointment, a minimum of 2 business days’ notice is required, so for a Monday appointment, we need to hear from you by Thursday. For the first last minute cancellation or missed appointment, you will be charged $50 dollars. If it happens a second time you will be charged $100.
Primary Care
Functional medicine works in tandem with and is not a replacement for any care or treatment that you receive from your primary care or specialist physicians. I will not be your primary care provider and recommend that you discuss your functional medical treatments, dietary changes, and/or supplements with your primary care physician to ensure continuity of care.
Electronic Health Records and Communication
Your medical records will be maintained on the secure and encrypted HIPAA compliant electronic health record (“EHR”) system Power2Practice. As a patient, you will have secure access to your medical records, lab results and other practice documents via the Power2Patient portal. You will also be able to use the portal to communicate securely with Dr. Goldberg and the office staff. In keeping with patient privacy laws and HIPAA, we encourage all patients to communicate with us via the secure patient portal messaging system.
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New Patient Information and Acknowledgement