FON: The Business of Personalized Medicine

Anti-Kickback and Fee-Splitting Legal Issues When MDs (and others) Lease Space

By Michael H. Cohen, JD Many physicians, chiropractors, acupuncturists, and other healthcare practitioners want to know whether they are fee-splitting when they rent a room hourly from a medical practice or other healthcare facility or practitioner. The answer, of course, depends on the arrangement, including whether other aspects of it raise fee-splitting, Stark, or anti-kickback considerations. Let’s focus for now just on the hourly rental. The problem with this is that

Mindfulness: A Key Skill In Speaking About Integrative Medicine

Do you believe that having great content is enough to inform and persuade audiences about integrative medicine? The truth is, it’s never enough. Your material alone—no matter how strong—can’t create the responses you’re looking for in stakeholders. It doesn’t matter whether that response has to do with educating, persuading, or inspiring people. Creating influence at that level is your job and responsibility. (To be as comfortable with listeners as you

A Living Tribute to Integrative Health and Medicine Pioneer John Weeks

EVERYBODY LOVES JOHN! As the field’s go-to intrepid reporter and informal historian, John Weeks’ strong editorial voice has consistently recognized the important work of others, constructively challenging, championing and chronicling what today is commonly referred to as the integrative health and medicine movement. His invaluable contributions as a key organizer, influential thought leader and über-connector have enjoyed tremendous impact in a still nascent but ever fertile integrative medicine landscape. Now it’s

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

Spontaneous Remission is a Myth

While certainly true that the human mind and body possess an innate healing capacity, the phenomenon can only be fully unleashed by activating specific powerful triggers. True healing is a complex biological process, not magic. Here’s the basic definition courtesy of Wikipedia: Healing (literally meaning to make whole) is the process of the restoration of health to an unbalanced, diseased or damaged organism. Healing may be physical or psychological 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