Role of Insurance At Our Practice

How to make sense out of insurance coverage for naturopathic services and unit integrative medicine.

Our services are an excellent complement to conventional insurance-based care. The main reason for this is because we are not restricted by the time or the breadth of the testing needed to uncover the underlying cause of the symptoms.

We do not ‘take’ insurance but this only means we do not bill insurance. When a practice takes insurance it means they are contracted with an insurance company and they do direct billing. This adds significant cost to the practice and limits what doctors can do. Although we do not bill insurance many tests such as blood work and imaging can go through insurance. In the state of Colorado naturopathic doctors are recognized as having the ability to diagnose and treat patients. This includes ordering MRIs, CT scans, x-rays, echocardiograms, blood work etc. Unless you are with an HMO such as Kaiser Permanente the lab or imaging facility will just bill your insurance directly.

What is Covered

It’s impossible to say with complete certainty that something will be covered, especially in these changing times, however, typically there is insurance coverage for blood testing, prescriptions, X Rays, MRIs, EKGs, colonoscopy, mammograms, and other imaging.

The term ‘covered’ means that the insurance company acknowledges the diagnosis and approves of the necessary blood work and other tests. Then, this cost is put towards your deductible.

The insurance ‘handshake’ occurs between the lab, pharmacy or imaging facility and the insurance company; not between the doctor and the insurance company.

What’s Not Covered

The visit is not covered but can go through a flexible spending account or HSA. Costs associated with any type of health care can also be accounted for in your income at tax time.

Intravenous treatment such as high-dose vitamin C and chelation.

Nutraceuticals, botanicals, and other supplements.

Medicare patients can not get anything covered by us. Labs and visits must be ‘out of pocket’.

If you have Kaiser Permanente nothing from us is covered.

We encourage patients to contact their insurance company and ask that naturopathic medicine be included in their policy.