FON: THE BUSINESS OF INTEGRATIVE HEALTH & MEDICINE

Integrative Health and Medicine Pioneer John Weeks Honored at IRCIMH

[Download eBook FON Presents: A Living Tribute to John Weeks] A leading force of the integrative health and medicine movement during the past 30 years, John Weeks was presented with a surprise lifetime achievement living tribute on May 15th during the International Research Congress on Integrative Medicine and Health (IRCIMH) gala held in Miami. As the field’s go-to intrepid reporter and informal historian, John’s strong editorial voice has consistently recognized

How to Improve Your Integrative Health Personal Brand: A-Z Infographic

As an integrative health and medicine practitioner or executive, what are you doing to position your personal brand? If the answer is nothing, then you’re leaving it to others to define your brand for you. And that is never a good thing! In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, taking control of your personal brand is vitally important and akin to protecting your online reputation. Your brand is what people say about

4 Reasons to Consider Integrative Medicine Group Clinic Visits

If your practice accepts third-party payer reimbursements, consider group clinic visits as a unique opportunity to cost-effectively deliver important services with reasonable compensation. I recently studied a range of group clinic visit options (aka shared medical appointments) while modeling an integrative health center for a large Florida-based orthopedic surgery group. The practice’s billing guru and I ran numbers predicated on various group session types, including: nutritional, exercise, general lifestyle and

7 Effective Website Design Attributes for Integrative Health Brands

If your website is not effectively designed and optimized to ‘immediately’ engage visitors, you may be losing more prospective patients or clients than you think. Fact: over 60% of us first research a product or service on the web and make purchasing or engagement decisions prior to ever placing our actual email or phone order. Today’s healthcare consumer is certainly no exception; she’s visiting your site as well as physician

America’s ‘Pain Epidemic’ and the Role of Integrative Medicine Providers and Payers

Sure, treating acute pain with conventional medical interventions and drugs can be quite helpful, but similarly treating “chronic” pain across various conditions and pathologies often amounts to little more than simply masking symptoms. Whether taken orally or as an injectable, drugs (including steroids) can temporarily reduce inflammation and pain but their potential deleterious long term negative effects can often take a significant physical, emotional and/or financial toll on patients and

The Power of Content to Grow Your Integrative Medicine Business

It’s never been more important to create and distribute high quality content to engage prospective patients and clients. That’s why I’ve written on this more than any other business development topic. It’s what drives business today—whether you’re talking about integrative health and medicine, financial services or computer widgets. Next to word of mouth patient and medical professional referrals, content strategy provides the most important opportunity for you to grow your

Concierge Integrative Medicine, image of a bell at a hotel with the name of the blog in text by it.

Is Concierge Integrative Medicine a Viable Model for You?

After a year closely following the inexorable growth of concierge care in the U.S.—and advising several primary care integrative health-directed physicians and pediatricians regarding various modeling options—it’s very clear to me that its basic business principals are a terrific match for some integrative health practitioners. Insurance and CMS Models Don’t Support Integrative Medicine Consults Physicians trained in integrative medicine will spend nearly 90 minutes per new patient consult (including the

Business Model for Integrative Medicine, image of blog title with magnifying glass on a small house.

The Best Clinic and Business Model for Integrative Medicine

“If you’ve seen one integrative medicine center… you’ve seen one integrative medicine center.”~Anon I am often asked what’s the best clinic or business model to deliver integrative medicine. My standard reply is the quote above; it pretty much says it all. Frankly, when deciding the most appropriate, sustainable model for your specific organization, there are many important considerations. Recently, I led a workshop at the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO)

The Impact of ‘Escape Fire’ and What Comes Next

In his excellent post, “Revisiting Escape Fire: The War to Rescue Our Health,” integrative health publisher and thought leader John Weeks questions the impact of this highly regarded documentary as a truly effective healthcare delivery game changer, and he appeals for a harder-hitting sequel to help finish the job. But before we discuss what a sequel might cover, it’s important to consider the uneven impact the original has had since