Alternative Medicine Practitioner, Primary Care

How To Find And Communicate With An Alternative
Medicine Practitioner Who Is RIGHT For YOU!

Here’s what YOU can do NOW to find an Alternative Medicine Practitioner willing to see you for Primary Care health issues and the best way to deal with the Practitioner...

18-Step Checklist For Finding And Using An Alternative
Medicine Practitioner For Primary Care Health Issues 

1. Check your yellow pages, Internet directories, friends and relatives in your immediate vicinity or call your Chamber of Commerce to find out which Alternative Medicine Practitioners – such as Acupuncturists, Chiropractors, Iridologists and Nutritionists – are in your area. If luck is with you, some may openly advertise their proficiency in handling certain cases – many of them Primary Care issues.
    

2. When you contact a targeted Practitioner’s office, explain to the Receptionist the symptoms you’re experiencing.
    

3. Ask the Receptionist if the Alternative Medicine Practitioner has had success dealing with patients manifesting your symptoms in the past. Be careful how you word this question. Legally the Practitioner can’t make any claims to treating any disease symptoms or states. The best the Receptionist can - or better - tell you is that the Practitioner treats your whole body – not any specific symptom complex. Sorry... this is your legal system at work. If asked, tell the Receptionist if and when you’ve ever seen an Alternative Medicine Practitioner or traditional Primary Care Provider for the same or a similar health issue.
    

4. Ask what the charges are for a first office visit and how payment is to be made.
    

5. Ask if the Practitioner will need any particular medical records or diagnostic test results you may have on hand.
    

6. Ask what you can expect to happen during an initial office encounter with the Practitioner.
    

7. If you set an appointment, ask how much time you’ll actually spend with the Practitioner. Also ask if you should arrive early to complete any paperwork.
    

8. Make a written note of the date and time of the appointment.
    

9. On the day of your first appointment, arrive at the time the Scheduler or Receptionist specified.
    

10. When the Practitioner sees you, be as attentive as possible – the line of questioning is liable to be quite different than what you may have been accustomed to with a traditionally trained Doctor. There may or may not be an examination table in the room, depending on the Practitioner’s discipline.
     

11. If the Practitioner encourages conversation before the examination, take advantage of the opportunity to tell the Practitioner this is the first time you’ve ever been to an Alternative Medicine Practitioner for a Primary Care health issue. Then, in a non-threatening way, immediately ask if she sees many Primary Care cases during the course of a normal week? This is a fair question that the Practitioner should answer directly. This will put you at ease and alert the Practitioner to not assume anything about what you know relative to her medical discipline. 
     

12. Don’t expect many or any diagnostic tests to be done, unless you’re dealing with a Chiropractor. Most of what will be done by way of analysis of your health condition will be done in the office. Remember, this is not a traditional Primary Care Provider’s office.
     

13. Keep in mind that Alternative Medicine Practitioners can’t legally give you a diagnosis of any supposed or actual disease condition. Only Medical and Osteopathic Providers can do that for you. Legally, the only thing an Alternative Medicine Practitioner can do is tell you what she would do to alleviate or correct the health condition if she personally had the problem. She can’t legally tell you more than that. Anything more could be misinterpreted as a provocative statement, which is illegal.
     

14. Bear in mind that the Practitioner will be deciding on the best course of action to treat your entire body – not just your symptoms.
     

15. Before you leave the Practitioner’s office be sure you know exactly what she wants you to do from that point. Do you need to return in a week or a month? Will you need to go through a cleansing program or eat certain foods, take particular herbs and food supplements – what?
     

16. Toward the end of the office visit ask the Practitioner if there is any available literature online or offline in print that you can read or otherwise access that can help you better understand your condition and the natural techniques the Alternative Medicine Practitioner wants you to follow.
     

17. Before leaving, ask if the Practitioner ever refers patients to any traditionally trained Primary Care Providers in your County. Who knows, if you and she ever feel the need to have you see a traditional Provider, perhaps she can help you get in.
     

18. Finally, ask if you can communicate with the Practitioner, after office hours, by email, in an emergency or for any other reason she deems appropriate. Find out the exact procedure or protocol for doing that and the charge involved, if any.

You should find the above checklist to be quite useful for your first office visit with an Alternative Medicine Practitioner.

In case you didn’t know, all traditional and alternative Practitioners are bound by law to keep their communications with you confidential. This includes all spoken conversations, written documents and electronic transmissions. There are exceptions to the law, but most Practitioners are ethical people in this regard. The more pertinent laws governing patient confidentiality are covered under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act – HIPAA.