Important News at Vital Source Natural Medicine

Happy Holidays!  We hope this letter finds you all well!

End of year medicinary sale:

All medicinary items will be 20% off up until our last day in the office before Christmas, 12/21.  Teas and cookbooks, or any items within 3 months of expiration will be 50% off. Come stock up!

New virtual medicinary sites:

We are excited to offer 2 new virtual medicinary sites that will replace our old Emerson Ecologics site.  The new sites are NP Script, and Wellevate.  Both sites offer 15% off retail and low cost shipping options for our patients.  The sites can be accessed from the sidebar on our website, and the access code is there for your reference as well. Between the two sites, nearly all of the brands we carry in our office are available.  You can also search for other professional grade supplements as well.  This is a wonderful option for patients who live out of town, or for when our office is closed for vacations.

Important news regarding insurance billing:

As of 4/1/17, we will no longer accept insurance at our clinic.  Dr. Van Dusen will maintain all current insurance contracts through 3/31/17, so there will be no changes until 4/1 if you are currently using your insurance for your visits.

After 4/1, we will offer our reasonable time of service rate to all of our patients.  Dr. Van Dusen will be considered an “out of network” provider with all insurance plans.  Many insurance plans offer good benefits outside their network of providers.  We will offer special receipts that patients can submit to their insurance to seek reimbursement after each visit.  If you have any questions about how this works, please ask and we are happy to help! We do have a list of questions regarding out of network benefits that you can use to call your insurance company.  You can download this from our “patients” page. If you are an Aetna, Cigna, or United patient, your coverage here will be exactly the same as it has been as we are already “out of network” with these companies. The difference will be that you will need to pay us up-front, then seek reimbursement directly from your insurance company after your visit.  You may actually end up paying less as you will also receive our time of service rate.

This has been a difficult decision and we would like to take the time to explain why we have decided to make this transition.  As many of you probably already know, working with insurance is not easy.  We have provided this service up until now because we do understand that it helps our patients to afford our services.  However, the other side of this is that it takes an enormous amount of administrative time and insurance companies also make a strong effort to influence the way that doctors practice.  Over time, this has become more and more restrictive.  At the same time, many patients are paying higher premiums for less comprehensive coverage.

It has always been Dr. Van Dusen’s priority to offer the best care that she can for her patients.  As things have become busier and busier in her practice, the need to focus her time more on patient care and less on administration has come to the fore.  Migrating to a cash based practice will allow Dr. Van Dusen to focus her time and energy on caring for her patients, and to spend extra time on research and professional development; the things that every doctor should be able to prioritize!

The direction that our healthcare system is moving is concerning.  It has come to the point where we feel the need to step out of this system to a degree as it inhibits the quality of care that we strive to provide for our patients.  If it were a system that we believe truly serves the interest of our patients, that aims to support doctors to practice good quality medicine, we’d certainly feel differently.  We hope that some day this will be the case!

Cranosacral fee changes:

One hour craniosacral session rates will go up to $80 (from $75) on 4/1/17.  Yes, a small change, but we always like to let patients know!

Thanks for taking the time to read this newsletter, and we hope you have a wonderful holiday season!