FON: THE BUSINESS OF INTEGRATIVE HEALTH & MEDICINE

Medicine Practice failure, image of a man holding an umbrella with name of blog on the image.

7 Reasons Integrative and Functional Medicine Practices Fail

During a recent call with a prospective client—a solo practitioner orthopedic surgeon looking to develop an integrative medicine center—I was asked why integrative health practices fail. I’d never before been asked this important question pointblank. My mind contemplated the myriad things that can conspire to bring a center to its knees, but in the silent seconds I sensed she might want a catch-all answer and I offered up ‘poor planning

7 Critical Steps to Mastering Your Integrative and Functional Medicine Sales Funnel

Yes, I know, the very notion of you, a clinician, reading about a ‘sales funnel’ in connection to the delivery of medicine makes you cringe. But I’m a marketing and business development guy who focuses on these things, and I’m convinced these seven steps will help your practice thrive. I think we can readily agree that any enterprise, including integrative, functional, and concierge medicine practices, requires a steady flow of

Integrative Medicine Services: When Less is More

If you’re operating a small integrative or functional medicine clinic offering a substantial menu of ‘services’, you may inadvertently be undermining your capacity for meaningful engagement with existing and prospective clients (aka patients). In my post Go Deep, Then Wide: Building Integrative Health Practices, I posited that maximizing (business) growth by laser-focusing attention and keeping distractions at bay is essential. This is specifically true for clinical services and patient engagement.

New Report Chronicles Cost-Effectiveness of Integrative Medicine

By Taylor Walsh In 2012 the most experienced researcher of the costs and benefits of complementary and integrative care stated: “I’m tired of this talk that there is no evidence for cost-effectiveness of complementary and integrative medicine. There is evidence. We need to move onto phase two and look at how transferable these findings are. We can take this evidence and run.” This was Dr. Patricia Herman, ND, PhD of the

Dr. Mark Hyman Assists Congressman Tim Ryan with Enrich Act—to Force Nutrition Education in Medical School

Article courtesy of John Weeks/The Integrator Blog A note reached the Integrator via integrative cardiologist Mimi Guarneri, MD from author and functional medicine advocate Mark Hyman, MD. “I need your help on something,” wrote Hyman. “I have helped Congressman Tim Ryan introduce the ENRICH ACT into Congress to fund nutrition education in medical school! We need to get as many signatures on the petition now to get this passed!” The petition

Dr. Don Berwick’s Institute for Health Improvement Promotes New Delivery Principles “Beyond The Triple Aim”

Article courtesy of John Weeks/The Integrator Blog The most progressive forces in U.S. medicine have signed on and are promoting a new strategy for medicine and health in the United States. In a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Institute for Health Improvement co-founder and former Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Don Berwick, MD published Change from the Inside Out: Healthcare Leaders Taking the Helm.

image of PBS-series-on-Cancer cover

An Integrative Oncology Patient’s Thoughts on ‘Cancer: Emperor of All Maladies’

As a 24-year cancer survivor I watched Cancer: Emperor of all Maladies with mixed emotions. From this patient’s perspective, the film is all about the ‘tumor’ and treats the host, aka the patient, as almost an irrelevant, disconnected entity. Ken Burns is the preeminent documentarian of our time. His own mother succumbed to metastatic breast cancer when he was only 11. His latest work, Cancer, produced by Barak Goodman and

Do Online Coupons for Integrative Medicine Services Violate Stark and Fee-Splitting Laws?

By Michael H. Cohen, JD Many integrative practitioners and online enterprises want to know whether Stark, anti-kickback, and fee-splitting laws are violated by business arrangements that offer online coupons or web-based coupons to customers. Let’s break this question down a bit for analysis. First, Stark self-referral law is on the federal level. We are only interested in federal law if Medicare Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California) or another federally funded health care

Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Functional Medicine: A Test Kitchen for Healthcare’s Future

By Erik Goldman From the outside, there’s nothing about the Cleveland Clinic’s new Center for Functional Medicine that suggests a healthcare revolution in the making. Tucked away in a compact suite in the vast Miller Family Pavilion, the Center shares the same minimalist aesthetic, and no-nonsense atmosphere as the rest of the world-renowned hospital system. There are no curved walls, Zen fountains, or essential oil diffusers. In appearance, the Center for