Integrative Health Coaching

Before booking an initial appointment, you will review and sign an Office Policies and HIPAA agreement. Additional intake forms will be emailed after the appointment has been booked. Please fill them out prior to the appointment so we can use your appointment time more efficiently.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has defined integrative medicine as healthcare that “brings conventional and complementary approaches together in a coordinated way. It emphasizes a holistic, patient-focused approach to health care and wellness—often including mental, emotional, functional, spiritual, social, and community aspects—and treating the whole person rather than, for example, one organ system. It aims for well-coordinated care between different providers and institutions.”

Over time I have developed my own approach to this paradigm and in this practice, each visit is rooted in:

• appreciation of how movement, nutrition, sleep and stress affect our overall sense of well being as well our cardiometabolic health, that includes blood pressure, blood glucose and our risk of chronic illness.

• consideration of how mind and body are connected and how our perspective, beliefs and stories affect our health.

• a botanical medicine perspective that encourages consuming a delicious Mediterranean or other plant based diet, knowing how to cook or access nourishing food, the use of culinary and medicinal herbs and spending time in nature.

• concerns about polypharmacy and polysupplement use and all visits include review of prescription medications, herbal medicines and nutritional supplements in terms of safety, interactions, side effects, quality, cost and rationale for use.

No, I do not sell herbs or supplements to my established clients or profit from recommendations I may make.

If I do suggest specific supplements I will connect my established clients (defined as those who complete an initial health coaching visit), if they would like, with an online ordering system where they can get a discount off the Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price (because I do not take a percentage) from some companies and/or I will send a botanical formula to an herbal dispensary where I do not profit from the sale, like a regular pharmacy.

In addition to formal herbal and medical anthropological education, I am a professional member of the American Botanical Society and have access to resources including HerbMedPro, Natural Medicines Database, The Complete German Commission E Monographs (on herbal medicine) and UpToDate.

While I sometimes suggest supplements or botanical options, I am more likely to question why people are taking a lot of supplements in the first place. All health coaching visits include a review of current supplements in terms of safety, interactions, side effects, quality, cost and rationale for use.

Yes, if you have a Health Savings Account (HSA) credit card for your high deductible health insurance plan (HDP) health coaching can be covered. You need to obtain a Letter of Medical Necessity from your physician, nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant that recommends health coaching and/or massage therapy for a specific medical diagnosis.

No. This practice does not accept health insurance as payment. Full payment by credit card or HSA (Health Savings Account) card is required when booking an appointment.

I use HIPAA compliant password protected software and encrypted emails for all communications including electronic forms submitted, file uploads, faxes and emails. Your personal health information is not available to any other medical practice and is never shared unless you specifically request it in writing.

I have longstanding special interests and training in botanical medicine and mindbody approaches. I bring these perspectives into visits when requested by clients and when I think they may be helpful.

While I believe a mostly healthy lifestyle does not need technological or laboratory confirmation and do not think apps or devices are appropriate for everyone, it is clear that the impact of this data for some individuals can be uniquely motivating for changing habits and making different lifestyle choices. You cannot “unsee” data that unequivocally points to a changing health condition.

As a health coach, I can work with clients who are monitoring their blood pressure or using continuous blood glucose monitors (CGMs), as a diabetic, prediabetic or nondiabetic person. I can assist in discerning actionable information vs. simply interesting personal physiological statistics from devices like the Apple Watch, Fitbit or Oura rings. I work to stay informed of new technologies (usually learning of them through clients) and will sometimes suggest apps or online programs as appropriate.

However, I think it is crucial to use new technologies and specialty lab results judiciously and sometimes, not at all. For some people all this data is not useful and contributes to anxiety and unhelpful preoccupation. Drawing a reasonable line with technology and endless information is an ongoing discernment process for all of us, with no clear guidelines available.

I believe there are potential immense health benefits in people disconnecting from phones, limiting internet scrolling and avoiding social media that can all simultaneously create an army of the worried well, misinform, divide communities and nations and destroy the possibility for moments of peace.

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” Theodore Roosevelt

“What gets measured gets managed.” V.F. Ridgway

“Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything than can be counted counts.” Albert Einstein

Please email me with questions and I will answer within 1-2 business days. If you have read through the information on this site and still have questions about whether this practice is appropriate for you, please request a 15 minute free phonecall to discuss your questions. It is helpful if you can state what days and times generally work for you in that initial email, so I can respond with potential specific times to talk.

I look at intake paperwork carefully to identify a potential client’s expectations and my capacity to meet them prior to a visit. Some people have chosen to book a massage appointment to meet me in person and ask questions about future health coaching during that visit.

I do not list a phone number on this website for reasons that include being busy seeing clients and patients throughout the week, a preference to utilize technology as much as possible to limit phone calls, the volume of robocalls in the past and my own efforts to have technology free time off, like I suggest to my clients. There is is no front desk person in this practice to answer the phone. If this is unacceptable to you, this is one indication that this may not be the right practice for you and may not meet your expectations.