Dr. Potter himself answers some important questions you may have about Functional Primary Care.
What are the benefits of seeing a functional medicine doctor?
Where you are buying a care or a dishwasher, of course you want them to be functional, but why do you want functional medicine as well? Of course, you want your health care to work for you, but let’s ask it a little differently. “Why does functional medicine work better than conventional medicine?”
Conventional medicine has its role in acute situations and severe cases. There are times when an antibiotic, a heart cath, or a surgery are necessary to save your life. Functional medicine however excels in the longer term of ongoing life health challenges. Understanding how your lifestyle interacts with your health outcomes offers you the insights to change the course of your future towards a healthier life.
Functional medicine works because you enlist a provider who listens to your health and applies remedies at a deeper AND broader level. By using the best of both natural and conventional therapies at a deeper mechanism level, you can see more impactful and longer lasting changes than just a medicine that lasts 12 to 24 hours.
What are the pros and cons of functional medicine?
Nothing is without pros and cons in life. Even the good things of life have a price and in the case of functional medicine, you should know what those costs are as well as the benefits. Some do choose the easy route of taking a pill or two or ten every day to avoid the costs, but you may find that the costs are worth it.
On the upside, you can get better control of your health not just for today, but for tomorrow as well. Changing lifestyle and nutrition now while minimizing toxic exposure will pay off for decades. Having many more years of living the life you hoped for is a great reward.
On the downside, functional medicine means that you will have to make daily choices about several areas of life. You will have to understand how different foods such as processed foods affect you and push aside unhealthy choices. You will have to decide how you fit some exertional activities into your life that boost your metabolism. You will have to look at the products you use and determine if their toxins are worth the quality of life lost to you or your family.
What is the healthier more abundant life worth to you? You have to decide each day.
Why is functional medicine not covered by insurance?
Functional medicine would seem like a no brainer for insurance companies. Sure, they might initially pay more for the longer visits necessary to make the lifestyle changes needed. Sure, they may pay more for advanced testing and a mix of herbals. Yet, 10 years down the road, they would be paying less hospital and medication costs when their customer is living a healthier life.
The problem comes in that a large number of their customers will not be their customer in five years. Between changing jobs which results in changing health care insurance, they may change insurance companies even at the same job. Why would the insurance company pay now higher prices for another company to reap the cost savings of good health 5 years down the road on a different policy.
We might hope the insurance companies would do it anyway for our benefit, but they are a business trying to make a profit. Even without accusing them of conspiring with Big Pharma, it just does not make great sense for them.
Why do people choose functional medicine?
Functional Medicine offers a different hope. Conventional medicine keeps its devotees coming back for more procedures and more pills. There is always the next and newest development to buy. Functional medicine offers answers at a deeper level in an environment of trust built on time spent with patients. Knowing our patients from longer visits and deeper levels of biological insight means we can offer patients more control and hope for their future health
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Why is functional medicine not covered by insurance?
Functional medicine focuses first on what is best for the patient sitting in front of them. Insurance companies focus on the bottom line which does not always line up with what is best for the patient. When these don’t overlap, insurance may not cover what the functional medicine provider believes is best.
What is the difference between a functional and integrative doctor?
Functional doctors and integrative doctors often have very similar patient-care approaches. They both apply natural and conventional therapies to their patient’s needs. The biggest difference lies in the fact that functional providers more consistently emphasize finding a root cause for a patient’s condition. The core principles of integrative medicine do not emphasize this, but many integrative providers do it regardless.
Does insurance cover functional medicine labs?
While Insurance is less likely to cover supplements than medications, many lab tests that a functional provider orders will be covered by standard medical insurance. However, some specialty labs can only be done by lab companies which do not contract with insurance companies. When such a lab is the best option, a patient may not have those labs covered or may have them covered only as an out-of-network expense.
Are functional doctors worth the money?
Years of bad health has a high cost. If conventional medicine is not meeting somebody’s health needs, the rest of the person’s life suffers, including their work-life. When functional medicine finds a way to overcome those health challenges and the person can get back to work, those costs fade away. Paying a functional medicine provider out of pocket is an investment: an initial higher cost followed over time by payoffs conventional medicine often can’t provide. In the end, the value of a restored life far outweighs the initial costs.