FAQ

Are You an Appropriate Candidate for this Practice?

Philadelphia Personal Health accepts new patients based on availability and an individual’s appropriateness for the practice. Here is a fairly simple breakdown of who is appropriate:

  1. Appropriate
  • Anyone interested in prevention – looking at diet, cellular nutrition, weight loss, fitness, sleep assistance, stress reduction, and genetic risk factors.
  • Anyone who fits into one of the nine “PPH Services” areas.
  1. May Be Appropriate
  • If you are not sure if you fit into one of the service areas, please send an email briefly describing your specific health challenge(s) and goals, and someone will get back to you.
  1. Not Appropriate
  • Anyone undergoing active treatment for cancer. After you are cancer-free, you are an excellent candidate for this practice. Areas of focus will be to rebuild strength, improve nutrition, and mitigate factors (genetics, inflammation, oxidative stress) that may have played a role in a tissue environment and immune system where cancer could initiate and grow.
  • Anyone who is not willing or ready to invest time and resources into their health.
  • Anyone who is not willing or ready to make positive changes in the DESS areas – diet, exercise, stress, and sleep.

How Do I Become a Patient or Schedule an Appointment?

Simply visit the Contact Page.

What can I expect during my initial visit?

Initial visits are packed full of information gathering. We will review your past medical history (from the patient portal), current symptoms, and goals. Based on that information, we move to an examination. Next, we talk about the likely causes of your symptoms and discuss a mutually agreeable plan of care (POC). Your original POC often includes diet, exercise, and lifestyle recommendations – you will receive plenty of supportive instructional information. We will also discuss using various functional medicine labs to take a look at various body systems and/or genes that traditional medicine does not routinely cover.

Do you take insurance?

Many patients successfully use their HSA or FSA accounts.

What are your fees?

Philadelphia Personal Health is a fee-for-service company. The hourly fee is $180 per hour for all appointments, except for your initial appointment. When you use the “schedule here” link on the PPH Contact Page, the fee for your appointment time and type will be listed. For new patients, the initial visit fees are slightly higher at $220 for a 60-minute appointment, and $270 for a 90-minute appointment. This increase over our standard hourly rate is secondary to our spending 20-30 minutes before your appointment to review your history and select educational materials that fit your specific health goals. You may prepay for your appointment when you schedule or simply provide us with a credit card at the end of your session.

What Conditions Do You Treat?

Certification in Functional Medicine requires a Board Examination that tests competency in Whole Body Medicine or Systems Biology (See FAQ – What Does A FM Practitioner Study.) This education makes a CFMP a generalist who looks for body imbalances that are often key contributors to many of the conditions listed below.

  • PREVENTION – Eastern medicine teaches us that the most visible illness is preceded by invisible illness and that disease often begins at a cellular level. PPH uses a specialty lab (CLIA approved) and a small blood sample, to go inside your cells and assess adequacy of biochemical messengers (aka nutrients), that are crucial in the fight against both symptoms and disease. This lab also provides an assessment of general immune health and antioxidant protection. See Resources/Nutrition and Disease Connections, or click here for more specific information. Treatment is then 100% personalized to your individual needs. The lab cost is $190 for most individuals.
  • Autoimmune diseases
  • Energy Imbalances (Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue)
  • Weight Gain and Body Composition Changes
  • Hormone Imbalances (Adrenal, Thyroid, Sex and Steroid Hormones)
  • Osteoporosis and Osteopenia
  • Gastrointestinal Issues (IBS, Crohn’s, Ulcerative Colitis, SIBO)
  • Musculoskeletal Injury; Pain, Weakness, Imbalance
  • Cardiovascular Disease; Hypertension, Hypercholesterolemia
  • Diabetes: Type II and Pre-Diabetes
  • Sleep Disturbances
  • Nutritional Deficiencies as well as Drug-Induced Nutritional Deficiencies – Often a silent
  • Nutrition Well Checks and Pre-Pregnancy Nutritional Adequacy (looking inside the cell)
  • Telomere testing shows us our cellular or biological age, which can be older or younger than our chronological age, depending on our overall health.
  • Food Sensitivities

What is Functional Medicine?

Functional Medicine is an evolution in the practice of medicine that better addresses the healthcare needs of the 21st century. Read more

What does a Functional Medicine Practitioner study?

Functional Medicine is an exciting new medical model that is experiencing tremendous growth in medical communities. Read more

Working with a Functional Medicine Practitioner.

Functional Medicine practitioners promote wellness by focusing on the fundamental underlying factors that influence every patient’s experience of health and disease. Read more

Will I be asked to take supplements?

It is likely that I will ask you to be on a pharmaceutical-grade supplement program, especially at the beginning of your program. People often begin at PPH with nutritional insufficiencies and/or deficiencies that they likely have had for some time. Our less-than-ideal food supply, poor food choices, and digestive/absorption issues often leave Americans in a chronic state of nutritional inadequacy. The human body can only compensate for so long until symptoms appear. Nutrients run, repair, or build nearly every process in the human body – that’s nutritional biochemistry! For more information, see the PPH blog on nutritional adequacy and nutritional science.

What is a Pharmaceutical Grade Supplement?

Pharmaceutical-grade supplements meet the highest regulatory requirements for purity, dissolution (ability to dissolve), and absorption. Pharmaceutical-grade supplements are 99% pure, with no binders, fillers, dyes, or other unknown substances. They are the lowest in potentially harmful excipients. Quality is assured by an outside party – the United States Pharmacopeia (USP). This high quality typically costs twice as much as supermarket style products, but typically you get 3-4 times the dosage! You can find pharmaceutical-grade products in better health food stores, medical offices, and compounding pharmacies. In some states, you need a prescription to get nutrients of this quality. PPH recommends and provides only pharmaceutical-grade supplements. Note: Although traditional OTC supplements are less expensive, PPH cannot recommend these unless they are third-party tested by an accredited agency. I will be happy to educate you on the goods and not-so-good products you may be consuming.

Will you change my diet?

This is where people begin to like me less……Yes, I will very likely ask you to make some dietary adjustments. I/We will strive to find food that benefits your specific health needs, genetics, risk factors, and your health goals. Foods that you enjoy!

What about exercise?

Yes, exercise is definitely an important part of health. Exercise prescription is more involved than most think. Exercise recommendations will take into account your gender, age, physical, orthopedic, and hormone states, and your individual goals. Private “get the right program going” gym appointments and/or referral to a personal trainer for more consistent support may be offered. I will be happy to use my exercise physiology and PT background to work with you or your personal trainer.

Is this different than Anti-Aging Medicine?

OK, we are all aging. The real question is “how” are you aging? Please see this document, which addresses the true physiology of aging. It was written by me and a colleague a few years ago. Click Here. By the very definition of aging physiology, yes, PPH is in effect an “anti-aging” practice.