The Neuropsychiatric Health Coach Model
What happens during Health Coaching?
This is not a new model, but a return to the model that built our modern Western approach to diagnosis. It is not a “medical appointment” restricted by location and insurance approval, but more akin to an advisory consultant service for families suffering from neuropsychiatric disturbances. This allows our providers to help patients and their loved ones all over the world. During a consultation with a Practical Neuropsychiatry Health Coach, we have one goal: to provide individuals with the knowledge and guidance to understand and survive through complex neuropsychiatric disorders. Perhaps things were fine until a medical event, and things haven’t been the same since. Maybe you or a loved one have had strange symptoms for many years, but initial experiences seeking help were so frustrating you felt like giving up. Maybe your experiences were so bizarre that you were afraid to admit them to your doctor.
Our main goals in a consultation are to learn about you from a non-judgmental perspective, to understand the nature of your experiences with minimal bias, to offer an expert opinion regarding the nature of these experiences, and to help you create and follow a plan to better neuropsychiatric health. In most cases, clients continue with their current providers with a newfound understanding of their symptoms and help to navigate the treatments their providers prescribe/recommend. In other cases, we help guide patients as they learn to advocate for their needs and understand any barriers to getting the care they need and deserve. If we can, we will also help patients find providers that better meet their needs.
What do I get for the consultation?
That depends entirely upon the client’s preferences and needs. After about 50 minutes into the first hour long appointment, the dual-boarded Neuropsychiatrist consultant will summarize and explain the options for next steps. In some cases, multiple consultation visits are recommended to meet the client’s goals. In other cases, the remaining 10 minutes is sufficient to help explain the nature of the symptom, reassure patients that the medical system is doing what it can, within the limits of current medical knowledge, and help patients understand what new symptoms could warrant a new evaluation.
We will typically offer a written summary of the discussion and recommendations at the request of the patient. This written summary will help patients to understand what treatments are available, where they can be obtained, and how to navigate getting the help they want and deserve.
Lastly, some clients will choose to have a concierge relationship with their neuropsychiatrist so that in the event of an emergency, as the journey through the medical system continues, or as symptoms change, the provider can be available for either a video or phone consultation within 24 hours to help manage crisis situations, coordinate hospital visits, or participate and advocate during other medical appointments. Some clients may choose a concierge option simply for the reassurance that they will have someone to talk to and help guide them through the challenges neuropsychiatric symptoms present.
How much does a consultation cost? -
Currently the Pay-as-You-Go model is at a rate of $500 per hour, depending on the required services. A shorter session or brief touch base to address quicker questions is $125/15 minutes (this may include text messages or email communications). Insurance companies design reimbursement to incentivize doctors to get patients in and out as quickly as possible with a prescription or a complex medical workup. With our Health Coaching, session length and frequency are at the client’s discretion. You are given the time you need to fully explain the medical history, and fully understand what the current medical literature says about the symptoms, the cause of those symptoms, and the available treatments for them. We will then work with you to create a plan to achieve your neuropsychiatric health goals.
While a consultation service can be expensive, the cost of frequently leaving work to see a thousand specialists, running a thousand tests, and never understanding what the results mean costs more. Simply consider the cost of your misery and confusion. If the medical model is working, a private consultant isn’t necessary, but when the standard medical model is failing, we do our best to help patients understand why and how to get the help they need.
Is a consultation right for me? -
There are a few common problems for which our consultation model is particularly useful. The most common situation is when a care giver needs to understand what is going on and how to best help their loved one. Many of our clients have a child recently diagnosed with a complex neuropsychiatric illness, or a parent at the beginning stages of a dementia. The doctor will often need to focus on the patient and may not even allow their care giver in the room until the patient is so debilitated that they need 24 hour supervision. In those cases, we teach caregivers about the nature of the given diagnoses, help all involved to understand the nature of the diagnoses and the available treatment options, and help families to find a new way of functioning that facilitates harmony rather than conflict.
Other common consults are for clients who feel like they aren’t given enough time with their providers to fully understand the nature of their symptoms, or even with sufficient time feel abandoned. You have strange visual disturbances, but they say your eyes are fine. You thought it was a stroke, but they said it was migraine. They say you have Bipolar disorder, but when you ask why they think that, the medical provider doesn’t provide answers. You are sure there is something wrong, but “all the tests came back normal” and your doctor says you should follow up with your PCP who was absolutely sure a disaster was coming.
Maybe there are some hard decisions to make about whether you can adapt to your new situation. Maybe you have recently retired and need help navigating the post-work waters. Maybe there is discussion between siblings about putting mom in a home. Maybe you brought mom home, but now she is very different and you have questions but your mom’s neurologist can’t get you in for 6 months.
You have a few choices… Try to find all new specialists that communicate better, spending years with trial and error, or break free of the medical conveyor belt and meet with a broadly trained specialist in neuropsychiatric diseases of all kinds whose only job is to help you get answers to your questions. If that sounds like you, Fill out the form to the left for a Consult!