Arete Health Policies

The Arete Health Approach

We strongly recommend you fully commit to the Arete Health approach to succeed with your health goals. Working with multiple centers or physicians, other than your primary care physician, may create contradiction, confusion, and frustration ultimately delaying your progress. Our providers purposely include (and consciously exclude) specific diagnostic labs, nutritional supplements, and professional modalities to achieve the highest probability of success for our patients. Utilizing outside resources of lower quality, including unqualified advice from well-intentioned friends, peers, co-workers, neighbors, and social media influencers as replacements (or in addition to) your specific recommendations creates unnecessary clinical variables and chaos, delays in reaching your health goals, and may decrease your provider’s overall confidence in the prognosis of your care plan.

A Partnership and a Process

For complex cases, chronic illness cases, and cases with high demands, care plans can take weeks, months, or even longer to reach your end goals. If you don’t see immediate results, don’t give up. At Arete Health, healing is based on a partnership and a process. In some cases, it may take time, patience, and persistence to identify and address the root causes of your illness. You will have to work hard, and so will we. It is highly recommended that the patient includes family members and/or close friends to be involved in the care plan to provide support and accountability – however, family members must also adhere to our policies when inside our clinic.

Cancellation, Rescheduling, and Preparedness

The purpose of this policy is to ensure efficient scheduling and maximize access to care for all patients. Patients are responsible for keeping track of their appointments and notifying the clinic as soon as possible if they need to cancel or reschedule. Patients are encouraged to keep contact information up-to-date and to communicate any issues that may impact their ability to attend future appointments. As a professional courtesy, we send patients an email appointment reminder 48 hours prior to their appointment and a text message reminder 36 hours beforehand. We acknowledge there may be times when you miss an appointment due to emergencies or obligations to work or family; however, we require notification of cancellation and/or rescheduling through official channels (call, text, or email) 24 hours before your appointment time to avoid penalty.

Cancellation within 24 Hours
Failure to provide 24-hour notice on the first occurrence will be noted and late cancellations thereafter will be charged for the full amount of the visit. Patients should be prepared to reschedule the missed appointment at the time of cancellation.

No Call/No Shows
Failure to arrive at your appointment without notice will be considered a no-call, no-show, and will be charged the entire visit amount. If a patient arrives 15 minutes or more after their scheduled appointment time, we may need to cancel and reschedule the appointment, depending on the appointment type, as the remaining time will not allow us to provide patient care at our usual clinical standard to without impacting the next patient’s appointment

Repeated Late Cancellations and No Call/No Shows
Patients who repeatedly cancel within 24 hours or fail to show up for their appointments without notice will be subject to discharge from the clinic. Our opportunities to treat patients are limited by our treatment regimen, therefore the patient and or his/her guardian(s), or legally responsible person(s), also acknowledge that we reserve the right to dismiss a patient from care if the patient no-call, no-shows on the second occurrence in the same care plan.

Communications

Under medico-legal regulations: once a patient-provider relationship is established, all communication regarding clinical information and scheduling should be through authorized channels, including our clinic’s phone, fax, mail, and/or email, with no exceptions. To ensure organizational efficiency and streamline communication, all clinically relevant information, including but not limited to treatment updates, appointment details, patient progress reports, and other pertinent clinical matters, must be sent via email. This policy allows for clear documentation, ease of access, and a centralized record of communication to support high-quality patient care and effective collaboration among team members. Communicating/direct messaging through social media or text is not an acceptable form of communication regarding any health-related, or care plan-related questions and will not be accepted or replied to.

Established Patients

All active patients should have regularly scheduled appointments throughout their care plan and most questions regarding care plans can be raised at this time. Our hours of operation are 9 am to 5 pm EST, Monday through Friday. If you have questions or concerns regarding your schedule availability, let us know prior to your initial evaluation. After your evaluation, you will be required to schedule the duration of your care plan in its entirety during patient onboarding before your first treatment visit. For additional support with more urgent questions, you can schedule additional teleconference check-ins if needed. Failure to schedule a summative assessment at the end of your care plan or opting out of additional and/or ongoing care will result in patient discharge unless as-needed follow-up visits are prescribed.

Family, Friends, and Pets

Any spouse or family member sharing responsibility for payment, travel, and/or implementation of a patient’s care plan should make themselves present and available for all key appointments, including the comprehensive examination, report of findings, and any in-person or virtual follow-up appointments. To reduce distractions during patient visits, unruly children under the age of 18 should be accompanied at all times and will not be permitted to behave recklessly inside the clinic. If your child needs direct supervision please make scheduling arrangements accordingly. The patient will be held financially responsible for any damages caused by any accompanying family member or friend. Here at Arete Health, we love babies and children, however, we ask that you please make childcare arrangements before your appointment. This ensures the safety of your children as well as a relaxing and therapeutic environment for your care. We also ask that you please leave your pet at home during your visit to Arete Health. Should you arrive at an appointment with a pet that is not a service animal, you will be asked to remove the animal from our healthcare facility. To avoid any disruption or inconvenience, we ask that you please leave your pet at home.

Health Coaching

Our health coaching sessions are offered as a stand-alone service and as add-ons to other clinical programs to educate and empower patients in making necessary lifestyle changes. By maintaining regular ongoing health coaching appointments, you’ll benefit from guidance for overcoming challenges, ideas for implementing those changes, and helpful resources. As with any other collaborative relationship involving professional mentorship or coaching, we aim to promote accountability over accommodation. Sometimes the results our patients fail to achieve before partnering with us is in the work they refuse to do. In these cases, our coaches prioritize telling you what you may need to hear rather than what you want to hear, including addressing certain attitudes, habits, beliefs, and behaviors that no longer serve you in your goals. Being humble, coachable, and committed to trying new things dramatically helps increase your chance of success.

Inclement Weather

The safety of our patients, staff, and visitors during periods of inclement weather is our top priority. In the event of inclement weather, such as hurricanes, tornados, severe winds, or flooding, we may need to modify our operating hours to ensure everyone’s safety. If the clinic decides to close, delay opening, or modify appointment schedules due to hazardous weather conditions, we will notify affected patients as soon as possible. Notifications will be made via phone, email, and text message, and updates will also be posted on our website and social media pages. If you have an appointment and are unable to travel safely to the clinic, we encourage you to contact us to reschedule without any penalties. Whenever possible, we may offer telehealth appointments as an alternative to in-person visits. In case of a medical emergency during inclement weather, please call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room.

Insurance

Arete health does not accept insurance or Medicare; we do not file insurance claims on your behalf, assist with claim resolution, or provide insurance codes, superbills, special letters, or any other special invoices or receipts for insurance purposes. However, we will provide a detailed receipt of services performed for you to submit to your insurance carriers. We expect payment in full by credit or debit card due when services are provided.

Medical Emergencies

We do not operate as a primary care physician, urgent care, on-call concierge, or retainer-based clinic. All urgent health-related matters should be brought to the appropriate personnel. If you are having a medical emergency please call 911.

Prescribed Changes

Your commitment to comply with prescribed dietary changes, supplements, as well as other treatment recommendations, is the key to healing. If you don’t follow the plan with reasonable consistency, your progress will likely be stalled. Not adhering to your specific care plan and associated recommendations may result in the termination of the patient-provider relationship. Follow your care provider's instructions or discuss with them any obstacles you may have in complying with your prescribed treatment plan. Communicate changes in your health and/or condition to your care provider. Ask questions when any part of your patient process isn’t clear. Provide complete and accurate health information, including an advance directive, if available. Patients have a right to refuse any treatment or recommendation, however, we also reserve the right to terminate the patient-provider relationship if an agreement cannot be reached over the specific details of your care plan, or for noncompliance/non-adherence to an active care plan. You will be notified in writing if we terminate the patient-provider relationship.

Pricing and Payment Options

When you schedule your new patient evaluation, we require a credit card on file and a $150 deposit to hold the appointment for you. No additional charges will be applied to your credit card unless you miss or cancel an appointment without a 24-hour notice. During your report of findings, the cost of your proposed care plan will be itemized and reviewed with you. All follow-up visits will be billed to your credit card on file at the time of service unless you provide additional payment information and instructions before your appointment. We expect payment for services rendered in full by cash or credit/debit card at the time of service. All credit/debit card payments will be processed on the same day of the visit or a virtual consultation. It is important to maintain an active credit card on file with our office for billing or follow-up consultations, laboratory testing, and other services.

Primary Care Physician

For optimal health results, we strongly recommend you have a PCP (primary care physician) while working with Arête Health. Arête Health is not responsible for medical or mental health emergencies, and the providers at Arête Health will not act as your PCP. Your PCP will only be contacted by Arête Health clinical staff if a situation arises that requires the attention of your local provider. If you are experiencing a medical emergency please call 911.

Proprietary Information and Redistribution

During the course of a care plan, patients may gain access to, and acquire proprietary methodologies. Patients may under no circumstances disclose, use, redistribute, or permit others to use such information for any purposes other than their own specific care plan. Failure to comply with this policy may result in legal action and/or termination of the patient-provider relationship.

Supplements and Laboratory Diagnostics

Supplements

We do not hold supplement inventory and will send you an email from our virtual dispensary with your specific recommendations. We do not offer supplement recommendations outside of our dispensaries and will not review alternatives to your prescribed supplements from our dispensary. Adding additional supplements from unknown brands and/or other providers creates unnecessary variables in your care plan and is not recommended.

Laboratory Diagnostics

A select number of our specialty laboratory diagnostics can be ordered and reviewed as part of our comprehensive care plans. Certain labs can be performed via at-home sample collection kits, while others require a professional phlebotomy service. If your labs require professional phlebotomy services, an additional $50 draw fee will be collected at the third-party draw site.

Refunds

We do not offer refunds on any services rendered. Care plan results are quite variable from person to person and while we do our best to achieve the desired outcome, it cannot be guaranteed.