FON: The Business of Personalized Medicine

7 Chronic Website Symptoms Hurting Your Integrative Practice: Addressing Root Causes

Today, over 85 percent of patients search online before booking a doctor’s appointment. If your website isn’t fully optimized to drive patient volume, you are losing business. Do you have an established practice with lots of word-of-mouth physician and patient referrals? It’s a certainty these referred prospects will look at your website before committing to see you. Have you opted-out of Medicare and operate a direct-pay practice? All the more

HHS Shuns Congressional Intent on ACA’s Practitioner Non-Discrimination Language

Article courtesy of John Weeks/The Integrator Blog In an April 24, 2015 e-mail made available to the Integrator by Mike Jawer of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP), the US. Department of Health and Human Services effectively told those following “non-discrimination in health care” (Section 2706) that HHS will not, anytime soon, abide by the law. The background, captured in this article, relates to Section 2706 Non-Discrimination in Health Care

Go Deep, Then Wide: Building Integrative Health Practices

Contrary to this article’s title, entrepreneurs and business managers often do the exact opposite: focusing widely but not deeply enough. That’s a productivity killer. Let me explain. See, when it comes to running a successful clinic we’re mindful of all the big picture details and we’re often jumping around simultaneously from task to task dutifully trying to keep all the balls in motion in order to make steady progress. We

5 Legal Issues Integrative Health Practitioners Need to Know for 2015

By Michael H. Cohen, JD With 2015 right around the corner, here are 5 legal and regulatory issues that integrative health practitioners need to know. 1. No Defined Legal Category Integrative medicine remains outside the bounds of a professional category defined by law—unlike, say, “physical therapy” or “psychology.” This means that the rest of healthcare law has to be borrowed, modified, or adapted to fit integrative health. For example, integrative medicine

Dwindling Skeptics and Rise of Integrative Health and Medicine

With the field’s steady ascent we’ve witnessed a continual decline in its nonbelievers. As a 25-year cancer patient who implemented a successful integrative oncology regimen soon after diagnosis, I have witnessed—up close and personal—the inexorable march and development of integrative medicine. Since launching FON and joining the integrative health industry full time, I have written extensively on both the business challenges and opportunities present in the field today. Thanks to

The Absurd Economics of Nutrition and Exercise

It’s fair to say that, to a large extent, America has long fostered a culture and environment conducive to physical inactivity and nutritional-based disease. With today’s prevailing science clearly showing that teaching and practicing lifestyle medicine significantly decreases the top chronic health conditions plaguing society—i.e., diabetes, obesity, heart disease and certain cancers—moving more firmly in this healthier, logical direction would subsequently trigger a vast increase in human productivity and output,

Dietary Supplements: Harmful or Essential? Cutting Through the Unrelenting Rhetoric

What a firestorm! Ever since Dr. Paul Offit’s book, “Do you Believe in Magic: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine” was released last summer, there’s been a burst of new negative dietary supplement study results and position papers. Editorials, featuring provocative headlines such as: Enough is Enough: Stop Wasting Money on Vitamin and Mineral Supplements and Don’t Take Your Vitamins, have been published in prominent medical journals and major

Cancer Treatment Centers of America: 800-Pound Marketing Gorilla

Since 2008 most major business sectors have evolved their business development strategies in response to profound changes in the modern marketing landscape. Curiously and with few exceptions, independent hospitals, hospital systems and large medical institutions remain firmly stuck in the 20th century. Not so for Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA). In fact, not one national cancer center matches CTCA’s overall aggressive marketing prowess and sophistication. This includes the top

Dean Ornish: Unrelenting Healthcare Disruptor

No one has been a greater force than Dr. Dean Ornish in proving the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of ‘lifestyle over procedures’ for chronic disease. His seminal work, designing whole systems research models and documenting remarkable outcomes—for reversing heart disease and early stage prostate cancer—has been extraordinary. Most impressive has been Ornish’s unwavering determination and skill over three decades to effectively translate scientific findings to practical clinical program models; thereby disrupting