Common Questions to Ask Your Functional Medicine Doctor in Elmhurst, IL

When looking into the treatment of functional medicine, some questions can be important to ask before seeing the doctor, and some questions worth asking in your initial appointment. Since functional medicine is a biology-based approach to healthcare, the doctor is going to look at all potential symptoms to cast a wide net when looking at a diagnosis.

Questions that are important for patients to ask their functional medicine doctor include:

• How would you describe your approach to medicine?
• Do you work with other professionals like nutritionists or health coaches?
• What experience do you have with my condition?
• What type of function medicine training do you have?
• Does your practice accept insurance?
• Do you use testing that involves labs, like blood tests or urine tests?

These questions can help a patient understand the approach the doctor likes to take with their treatments, if they are experienced in function medicine, and if they have any experience in treating your current condition so you know you are receiving the best care possible.

Things to expect when seeing a functional medicine doctor is knowing that they are going to go very in-depth with you regarding your medical history, family medical history, your current illnesses, any treatments you have tried previously, medications you have taken, and how they have worked for you, your current lifestyle including exercise and diet, sleeping patterns, your relationships, anything that worsens your symptoms (stressors) and your overall emotional wellbeing. This may sound similar to what your regular doctor would go over with you, but when you are in the appointment, they will go very in-depth with these questions, whereas normal primary care physicians will just scratch the surface with these questions.

The reason for the in-depth convection regarding everything about you, and your life, is because they want to understand how your condition affects you outside of the normal expectations. Those, for example, who have depression would normally just receive a prescription and be sent on their way, while a functional medicine doctor is going to look at all the symptoms your depression is causing, how it is affecting your daily life, if it is affecting your relationships, and how previous medications have worked and any other things you have done to manage the depression. They may also do hormone or blood tests to look for certain underlying causes for your depression, to make sure that their treatment plan is ideal for your biology and situation.

Research has found that patients who are seen by functional medicine doctors will see improvements in their health within 6 months, and those with chronic conditions that conventional medicine has not been able to treat also see more improvements in their daily lives. Since functional medicine doctors all take different approaches to the care of their patients, and all treatment plans are unique to the individual there are no set statistics or percentages to show how successful the rate of functional medicine has been, but it has been shown to greatly improve the quality of life of those who do see functional medicine doctors. Functional medicine has also proven to be beneficial in patients who have experienced pains that are unknown in origin that may have previously been written off as only “in their head”.

This will depend on your insurance provider and the functional medicine doctor you are seeing. Not all functional medicine doctors will accept insurance, but some do. However, before your appointment, you should ask the team at the practice if they accept the insurance you are planning to use, and also reach out to your insurance provider to confirm that they do cover it, as some insurance providers may only cover your initial assessment and not the subsequent appointments you will need. 

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