About the Practice

  • We spend time with patients, offer more specialized labs and dig deeper into current symptoms, diagnoses and overall health. We specialize in the use of natural therapies, lifestyle and nutrition interventions to support your health goals.

  • It is is a branch of healthcare that focuses on preventing, managing, and often reversing chronic diseases by addressing their root causes through evidence-based lifestyle interventions. It empowers individuals to make positive, sustainable changes in key areas of their lives to improve overall health and well-being.

    Anyone, regardless of age or current health status, can benefit from lifestyle medicine. It is particularly impactful for individuals with chronic conditions or those seeking preventive measures to maintain long-term health.

  • Functional Medicine is a systems biology–based approach that focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of disease. Each symptom or differential diagnosis may be one of many contributing to an individual’s illness.

    For example, depression can be caused by many different factors, including inflammation. Likewise, a cause such as inflammation may lead to a number of different diagnoses, including depression. The precise manifestation of each cause depends on the individual’s genes, environment, and lifestyle, and only treatments that address the right cause will have lasting benefit beyond symptom suppression.

  • Recommendations may include lifestyle modification, lab testing, nutritional counseling, botanical medicine, homeopathy, nutraceuticals, environmental medicine and more. We meet the patient where they are at, meaning, we won’t make any recommendations that are unrealistic for you. We do however, encourage individuals to challenge themselves and to take steps outside of their comfort zone.

  • Unlimited messaging is intended to keep you on track and are for check-ins or questions about supplement or health plan recommendations. Patients have unlimited messaging contact with our healthcare providers. We will answer within 48 business hours excluding holidays. However, if an email question or request is deemed by one of our doctors to be too complicated or involved for a response via email they may, at their discretion, require that the member schedule a phone, telemedicine or in person visit instead of responding via email. If you have questions about billing, appointment times, rescheduling, orders, or non-medical questions, please contain our management staff at hello@dremilymcdonaldmd.com and they will assist you with your needs.

Appointments

  • An Introductory Consultation includes a general review of health history, current challenges, and vision for health.

    A New Member Consultation includes a comprehensive intake in addition to review of medical records, and begins the holistic assessment process.

    We invest a large block of time with each patient in order to find the root cause of their condition and offer individualized treatment plans. We may spend up to 2 hours for a new patient visit and up to 45 minutes during follow up appointments in order to better understand the patient's medical history and current health status. We also spend a significant amount of time outside the appointments researching up-to-date information on your specific condition.

    When you meet with your practitioner, they will review your health profile and possibly suggest lab work. After lab work has been reviewed and we have a confident health assessment, your health plan will be recommended. From there on out, future appointments will involve health coaching, tweaking of your health plan, lab comparison (ex: running a cholesterol panel to see if your lipids have improved), and symptom review.

  • The most important preparation is to consider what matters are most important to discuss during our time together. If you are preparing for a New Member Consultation, please upload medical records or have them faxed to 631-250-1082.

  • Primary lab work is fulfilled through Quest Labs.

    For specialty lab work, each lab differs on whether it will be picked up at our office, delivered to your home, or drawn at a lab. Turn around time for labs can be anywhere from 1-4 weeks after the lab is completed. You will receive an email confirmation when your labs are received with a reminder to schedule an appointment to review the labs.

  • I do not write prescriptions, however, I routinely review medication regimens in terms of side effects and drug interactions during consultations.

  • No, we are not in-network with any insurance plan. The cost of all services will be billed to you directly. We do however, accept FSA and HSAs but as always, it is at the discretion of your savings account to approve charges.

    Further, general blood work is generally covered by insurance. This excludes specialty testing, which is not covered by insurance. You can, however, submit specialty testing to your insurance after paying for reimbursement.

    We will not submit a medical claim to insurance on your behalf. We cannot assist you with claim resolution for our services.

    We will provide you with a detailed billing summary upon request that you may submit to your insurance provider.

  • We accept credit, debit cards, checks, Venmo, PayPal, Zelle, and cash. When you create a profile through Practice Better, you will be able to make payments online. We also accept HSA & FSA payments.

  • When you book an appointment, you will be sent an email with a link to create a patient portal. This is a secure medical records system where you will be able to fill out your patient paperwork online. It is required you fill out your paperwork at least 24 hours prior to your new patient appointment.

Supplements

  • We recommend supplements that can be picked up in office or delivered to your door. In some cases we use a service called Fullscript. When a recommendation is made to you via Fullscript you will receive an email to create an account with Fullscript in order to place your order. Fullscript allows you to order prescribed nutraceuticals online to be delivered to your home. Prescription re-ordering and adjustments can also be made through FullScript. If you have a membership, your discount will apply to your Fullscript portal.