”Do you accept insurance?” This is a question we get asked all the time at Nebraska Functional Medicine. And we get it! It is a decision that must be taken seriously and should fit your individual needs. I’m going to go through why we do not accept insurance in hopes it makes more sense to you.
1. Insurance has mandatory rules and regulations.
Because we are a small business specializing in functional medicine, having an insurance-based model comes with a lot of red tape. Which means increased prices and visits, less time with you, the patient, and many restrictions on what we can and cannot do. As a patient you’d get rushed visits, subpar, band-aid treatment plans, and poor outcomes, yet more of your time and money used.
2. Almost every insurance company doesn’t cover Functional Medicine
All of us functional medicine practitioners struggle with this. Especially as more and more of you want to experience functional medicine! Insurance says functional medicine is not “a means of addressing your health.” Which of course, is completely ridiculous. Ask any of our patients, they will tell you they FINALLY got answers to their health by working with us after years of disappointing care and no solutions. There are some Christian Health Insurance companies that FULLY support and reimburse functional medicine, because they have seen the power it holds and how much LESS they have to spend on healthcare because they got to the root causes.
If you have one of these cost-sharing health plans, we are more than happy to work with you and provide what you need to get your care with us covered!
3. We have more freedom without insurance.
Because we utilize functional medicine for your care, we are able to be more patient-centered, and therefore can practice and perform whatever is needed for YOU, not what insurance says must be done for your condition.
We aren’t naive to know that functional medicine is an expense for many, but hear us out:
- How long have you been suffering?
- How many treatments have you tried?
- Have those treatments worked?
- What have your other solutions cost you?
—Not just in money, but in time. Your life is precious and time here on Earth is not guaranteed. How much longer do you want to live it suffering?
And is it REALLY that much more expensive in the end? After you meet all your necessary high deductibles and spend more time away from work for appointments, travel time to specialists, prescriptions, etc.?
It is our hope and dream that insurance eventually covers what we do. However, after several years in clinical practice, we can assure you that functional medicine is far less expensive than doing nothing or continuing to live like you are. Plus, we have many ways we can reduce costs to make it affordable for you. Just like our individualized treatment plans, our providers take in account your unique financial situation too.
One way we can do this is by ordering blood work or tests through your insurance company, to be drawn at your local clinic or hospital. However, many of our patients who have tried this, come back to us and share that our cost on labs is WAY cheaper than the ones they had drawn WITH their insurance.
So take some time, add up the months or maybe years, you’ve spent suffering, and the amount of money you’ve spent trying to find solutions that never work long term. Then think about how much it’s cost you in terms of your quality of life. When you think about the whole picture, we bet functional medicine is well worth the investment.
