Cary Integrative Health: How We Work
It only takes a quick look at our website or a visit to our office to see that Cary Integrative Health approaches healthcare pretty differently from a typical practice.
That’s because we are, at the core, focused on integration. We think about the word “integrated” on two levels.
First “integrated” is our lens for every person who walks through our doors. We treat the whole person, with the knowledge that your body, mind, and spirit are integrated. You’re not, after all, just a matrix of separate systems. To read more deeply about what we mean by “integrative healthcare” and how this compares to mainstream medicine, read this blog post.
Second, “integrated” is how we practice: we work as a team to offer you the best possible approach to wellness. We are a collective of health professionals with different knowledge sets, gifts, and clinical experience. When we synthesize all that to treat each person who games to us–sharing insights, looking at a problem from multiple perspectives, many lenses–we transform your experience of (and outcomes from) healthcare. Good things happen!
This second approach to “integrative health” is where we’ll focus here. Want to know how our office works together to transform healthcare? How do we actually hash out ideas in your best interest? Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty, yes?
How do people find Cary Integrative Health?
People decide to try out integrative healthcare for all kinds of reasons. Maybe they’re fed up with the fractured state of our national healthcare system, where no one doctor quite has the full picture of their health. Maybe they have a mysterious problem that mainstream medicine hasn’t been able to solve. Or maybe they just want to feel more whole–and visit practitioners who treat them that way.
Whatever motivated you to try out integrative health, we can almost guarantee you’re trying our integrative health office for one of two reasons: either you Googled “integrative health near me” (or something similar) or–and this one’s a safer bet–someone you know recommended us to you.
It’s worth saying: recommendations make our day. They make our business, sure. But they also make our day. Nothing is better than knowing we’ve served people well enough that they want to pass along the goodness to people they love.
How do people make an appointment?
When you decide to try integrative health and either Google or a friend has pointed you our way, you’ll likely do one of two things:
Use the contact form on our website
Give our office a call.
Either way, the message goes to our front desk and our beloved Pam. Pam hears each person’s story, asks clarifying questions if necessary, and passes along a referral to the person at Cary Integrative Health who would be most relevant to the person’s problem, health goals, or stage of life. This way you are connected to your provider personally!
After that, an appointment reminder is sent from the provider themself, and we look forward to seeing you soon.
How can so many different kinds of practitioners work together?
Once you’re actually in our office, that’s where things get fun…it’s where our integrated perspective and practice really shine.
You’ll see the most relevant practitioner first–maybe it’s our chiropractor, maybe it’s our nutritionist, maybe it’s our mental health specialist. Pam will set you up with what makes the most sense for your current problem, health goals, or life stage.
That practitioner will do an initial intake and assessment, ask lots of questions, spend more time with you than you’re used to in mainstream medicine. They will lay out a prospective treatment plan and may send you out with a few ideas about who to see next to make the next steps toward your health goals. You’ll leave with business cards and maybe a tour of the building to show you where other practitioners’ offices are.
If a practitioner makes a referral, he or she will (with your permission) talk to other relevant practitioners about your health. That conversation includes observations, a look at health history, input from you on your latest habits, problems, diet, family situation, job, movement–all the things that impact your body, mind, and spirit.
Your next appointment will be scheduled with your provider, and perhaps another with another specialist at our office with a collaborative perspective.
If it’s the latter, and we think you would benefit from seeing several different practitioners, we can all treat you with the benefit of one another’s perspective and expertise.
In other words, each person who steps inside our doors is stepping into the collective wisdom of every person in our practice. Your health problems are shared, your goals are shared, and your victories are shared too (With your permission, of course!). With this model, we brainstorm, troubleshoot, and plan for each patient as an integrated team–all with your holistic health in mind.
How do people pay?
Our practice is integrated–we collaborate to guide people toward wellness. But our practice is also made up of individual practitioners.
Each practitioner has different payment systems: some take insurance, some do not.
But don’t worry: Pam will keep you straight. (Can you tell we really love Pam?)
How long do people visit? Months? Years?
How long you decide to continue coming to our practice to improve your health just depends on your own goals. Often people come initially to troubleshoot a specific problem. But in treating that problem, they realize an integrative approach to health is something they’d like to pursue. So they stay, with the knowledge that we will point them toward mainline medicine if they need it.
The final word.
So that’s how our office works. It’s pretty simple, right? But in an increasingly fragmented, bottom-line-oriented healthcare system, treating a person from multiple areas of expertise, taking time to know them as a whole human, comparing notes and checking details–that can feel pretty revolutionary. We invite you to come give it a try.
To life and to health! We hope to see you at our Cary office soon.