Why should I pay for a doctor's visit?

Bottom line: You will receive superior care by seeing a provider that does not accept insurance.

When you pay for a visit to your doctor, your doctor is working for you. When your insurance pays for a visit, your doctor is ultimately forced to work for your insurance company. Decisions about your care end up split between the treatments your doctor believes you need and the insurance company’s goal to provide the least amount of care possible, and thus make the most money. Insurance is fundamentally a business, and as with any big business their ultimate concern is profit. While they offer health insurance, they do not offer health care.

Most of the complaints that people have about doctors: short visits (being rushed in and out), long waits, being treated like a number, and often not even seeing the doctor (seeing a nurse instead) are caused in large part by health insurance. In order to make money accepting insurance, the average doctor needs to see 15-30 (or sometimes more) patients in a day. The only way to do that is to keep visits as short as possible, and keep the focus on treating your symptoms with drugs.

When I began to design Aspire Natural Health I vowed to follow my heart and create something different and better. The vast majority of doctors are frustrated by health insurance, but feel accepting it is necessary. One of the first things I realized was that to create better care for my patients, I wouldn’t be able to accept insurance. It is my belief that the most important aspect of health care is the relationship between the doctor and patient, and I have seen that in most doctors’ offices, health insurance has seriously damaged that bond.

Aspire Natural Health is built on the idea of quality over quantity. Our small size means we can give personal attention to each person; we have no desire to see 30 patients a day. Our goal is to spend time with each patient, and to provide the best care that we can, without outside interference.

Many doctors consider our visits with our patients long. We don’t consider them long, we consider them necessary. We need time to build personal relationships, and time to get beyond simple symptom treatment to find and treat the causes of the problem. Our long-term programs don’t coincide with insurance’s simple rules of “X visits for Y condition,” but were designed out of the conviction that by working with our patients long-term we could not only help them with their current issues, but we could help them with true preventative medicine. Our ultimate vision moves beyond simple health care to helping people cultivate their potential and connect with their life purpose. This vision and our desire to build relationships with each of our patients is the reason we choose not to accept insurance.

While we don’t directly bill insurance, as part of our commitment to our patients we are happy to offer the coding and paperwork needed to submit to your insurance company. Patients are able to submit these and many are reimbursed for out of network visits. That way you can, in our opinion, make the best use of your insurance company.

While we recognize that paying out of pocket for medical expenses is new for many people, we are confident that the care you receive with us is worth it. If you have any questions or concerns, or we can be of service to you, feel free to contact us.