Frequently Asked Questions

Most visits can be scheduled within the SAME DAY or NEXT DAY.  If you need urgent care, we might even be able to squeeze you in between other patient visits if needed.

We don’t overbook and we limit our  total number of patients (a.k.a. patient roster or patient panel) to 300 patients at any given time, compared to most practices that have at least 3,000 patients and as many as 6,000 patients.

This allows us a lot of time to keep studying the latest research and protocols in longevity, holistic, functional and regenerative medicine, and also to give us more time to focus on our patients. So there will be no waiting time for our patients, unless we have an urgent care patient that we had to squeeze in during our usual buffer time usually allotted for charting and other breaks.

To register or pre-register costs you nothing or $0.

By registering you are ONLY notifying Long Life Med of your interest in becoming a patient member to find out more by providing your basic contact information.

Pre-Registration is signifying your interest in the memberships and services we offer. It allows you to estimate the prices you will pay, depending on the number of people, different memberships & services you are interested in, and the billing cycle that you prefer to pay your membership/s.

It does NOT guarantee you enrollment as a patient, as this is a 2-way relationship and a free first visit is required to see if we are a perfect fit for each other.

You will not be charged anything for pre-enrolling, but it gets you into our EMR so we are ready for your first visit and also locks in your discounts/promotions at the time of your Pre-Registration.

If we our patient panel is full for the type of membership you are interested in, you also get put into a waitlist and will be notified when it is open enrollment again.

If you are registered as a potential member, you have completed all of the registration survey, and hopefully already set up an appointment for your free initial consultation.

If you are enrolled, it means that you have had your first visit and we have mutually decided that we are a good fit. You have selected membership, completed new client medical histories, and paid for a membership.

NO, we don’t accept health insurance.

More specifically, we do not accept health insurance payments for our patient memberships or out-of-pocket expenses.

However, health insurance can cover some diagnostic orders. For example, lab orders (blood or urine tests) or imaging (x-rays, CT, ultrasounds, etc. ).  We provide  more than standard labs included in the membership cost, but if you require a unique lab or diagnostic imaging  Long Life Med will pass along our facility discount as we pass the wholesale savings we are given on to our patients.

If you are willing to go through the hassle of completing the bureaucratic health insurance paperwork and following up with them to apply for reimbursements to go towards your deductible–we will be happy to review the process you’ll need to go through to gain these approvals, although we can not guarantee an approval because we are considered an out-of-network provider.

Keep in mind all your annual labs are covered with your monthly membership — including a few specialized labs most health insurance does not cover. That’s our NO Hassle Pricing! Only special labs would have additional cost.

Your provider will ALWAYS discuss ANY cost up front. That’s transparent pricing—without surprises. (We keep it simple for our providers by having the memberships cover A LOT!   ;-] )
For example, any order that is a special lab tests an imaging tests will already have a highly reduced price – we pass our reduced pricing cost on to you. We don’t up charge for more profit.

If you prefer to go the Health Insurance Route you will need to gain approval and for the lab or imaging before hand, at the standard price structure (our low prices will NOT apply, not even retroactively). For those of you who don’t want to play those health insurance game, then DPC care is for you!

Absolutely $0. Also, no deductibles. We are not an insurance plan.

Most everything under the DPC plans are included, including labs and other tests, urgent care and clinic visits.  There are some tests and other plans that are extra, but you also get wholesale pricing for those tests and discounts for the other plans as a DPC member.

We provide full service healthcare with extended access to your Medical Provider for a low monthly membership fee.  That is part of DPC care.  No Hassle health care!

The insurance deductible is the amount that you will have to spend towards services covered by your  health insurance, BEFORE they even start paying for them. If you have a $2,000 deductible, you will have to pay full-price (a.k.a. bloated insurance prices) on all your visits, labs, imaging, prescriptions and other services, before your insurance will start paying a certain percentage of it, and you then have your Co-Payment.

Co-Pays are what your will have to pay after you have met your deductible and your insurance starts paying for some of your services. These are typically between 10%-50%. However, the prices that you are going to be paying are bloated insurance prices, so your Co-Pay might be equivalent and usually much higher than what you would pay on a discounted cash price with your DPC membership. (For example, an MRI might cost $3,000, and with a co-pay of 20% after meeting your deductible, you would still be paying $600, when the same MRI would only be $300 or less from our vendors).

Insurance Co-pays tend to be high, and even PCP visits usually cost you $150 on a high deductible plan, which is what most people have and can afford.

You also have to pay for everything until you have met your deductible, so that adds up.

A single Urgent Care visit, could be more than your monthly membership (or even more than your annual DPC membership if you count the lost wages), and you’ll probably be waiting hours to be seen be a Provider and might need miss from work, when the whole sickness and absenteeism might have been avoidable if you have Direct Primary Care.

At least 50% of those who go to Urgent Care should have been going to their Primary Care instead, but most PCPs are not available for weeks or months later, and many doesn’t have insurance at all.   With DPC, you could be seen on the same day or next day, and your issue might even be responded to or resolved with a few text messages or a call. That’s a lot of time saved.

For half the price of the common deductible of $2,000, a prepaid annual Standard DPC membership of $1,000, will already include unlimited visits, prescription refills, some labs, and a lot of other included services.

However, you can absolutely use your insurance for things like extra labs, medications, images, specialty visits, hospitalization visits, and more. Although as stated above, it might be cheaper for you to pay for those other services using discounted cash rates out-of-pocket, compared to the insurance rates of up to 10x more if you haven’t met your deductible yet. Sometimes even the 20% copay is more expensive than the discounted cash rate. Our clinic staff can help advice you on best and cheapest solution for each situation.

However, your insurance can’t be used for low monthly membership fee that gives you all these personalized services and extended access to your Medical Provider.  A lot of the services is done at the clinic no additional charge.

Yes, we strongly recommend for everyone to have a separate health insurance, to cover for hospitalization and other catastrophic health events.

While your DPC Provider can usually help take care of up to 90% of your health care needs, it doesn’t pay for catastrophic events and specialist visits, although we are working into getting those specialist consults at the cheapest price possible too.

The best way to do this is to get a high deductible plan of maybe $5K or $10K, just in case you need it for that emergency, and then have a Health Savings account to pay for medications, imaging, and other health care costs (except for the DPC membership).

Of course. No problem!  A single Urgent Care visit could be equivalent to your quarterly membership, and you’ll probably be waiting hours to be seen be a Provider and might need miss from work, when the whole sickness and absenteeism would have been avoidable if you have Direct Primary Care.

At least 50% of those who go to Urgent Care should have been going to their Primary Care instead, but most PCPs are not available for weeks or months later, and many doesn’t have insurance at all. With DPC, you could be seen on the same day or next day, and your issue might even be responded to or resolved with a few text messages or a call. That’s a lot of time saved.

While we do recommend that you carry health insurance, it certainly doesn’t mean you can’t have great health care.

We think healthcare should be affordable for all.  That’s why, for less than most utility bills, you can get affordable high quality care!  Almost everything Long Life Med (except for the stated add-ons) can do in-office is at NO additional charge.  There’s no copay, no deductible, no extra charges. You will never, ever be blindsided by a bill.

If there are things that need to done outside of our clinic such as an image, or maybe a lab (we do some labs in office but not all), then we contract with local providers to get you the best possible discounts. We can also recommend or refer to specialists that have discounted cash pay prices.

Most people avoid going to the doctor because of high costs, even for those that have insurance, so most health care issues that should have been preventable are not address until it is almost too late or too late.

Having a DPC Membership that will allow you not to stress about surprise bills, will encourage you to get those regular conversations with your health provider regularly to get your health issues resolved sooner and future health problems avoided.

As of now, we are unable to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients. We do have a waitlist and we plan to be able to accept patients who are on Medicare and Medicaid.

You can sign up for that Waitlist and we will notify you when we are able to accept you.

However, please note that Medicare will still not cover the Membership fees and other non-Medicare-covered services. It will and will just cover the labs, imaging, medications, specialists, and other services not covered by your DPC membership.

At Long Life Med we are committed to quality care for each of our patients.  We don’t want our patients to feel rushed or feel they are being undertreated—ever!

We keep our patient roster low to ensure this level of care.  Our patient panel is about 10-20% of a regular provider to ensure we provide exceptional care.

When Long Life Med has an open enrollment period, we limit the number of patient enrollment slots to ensure you and your provider have the time to address all your issues and concerns and start building a collaborative relationship from day one.

However, you can still Pre-Register and be on the Waitlist, and we will lock in your discounts and promo at the time of Pre-Registration, and we will notify you when you can schedule your first appointment.

Everyone needs healthcare, and it is important to have a doctor that knows YOU!

In the DPC model, you are able to call, text, email or video chat your doctor about any medical questions that may arise. It is convenient and save you money and time.

We can help keep you healthy with routine check-ups, and when you do get sick we will be there to guide you without charging you for copays or deductibles.

However, if you can not afford the regular monthly fees of the DPC plans, or you are relatively healthy and between 16-30 years old, you can also just pick the TeleHealth only plan, and still have access to discounted urgent care and telehealth when you need it, and also still get the annual labs and physical. You are also still able to text and email your provider for simple questions that does not require a video call or in-person visit, like medication refills etc.

Yes, there is a one-time registration fee of $100, but it is waived for memberships that are pre-paid for at least 3 months. This mostly covers your initial labs, as the first visit is still free.

When you enroll in our DPC clinic, we are committing to your health, and so should you. Therefore, we would like you to commit for a minimum of 3 months.

However, if you still decide to cancel or move out of town, please notify us at least 30 days in advance so we cancel your next bill.

There will be no refunds of memberships already paid for and used. The only exceptions are for a deployment or if you move out of town, then we can refund you the remaining months that are not consumed (and the consumed months for that billing period will be billed at the monthly rate).

You may be required to leave a credit card or link your bank account during registration.

This signifies your commitment to the appointment, and although first visits are free, we might charge a fee of $25-$50 dollars for a no-show or a cancellation within 12 hours.

This is  to discourage people from filling up appointment times that might also be needed by other patients.

We are fully committed to having enough appointment slots to be able to give urgent care and even primary care visits within 48 hours for our patients who need them, so we don’t want people to abuse those free & unlimited visits.

However, at the Pre-Registration process, the prices you will see at checkout are estimates, before any applicable promos and discounts.

You don’t pay until your membership is officially approved and after your initial visit.

WE TREAT YOU LIKE FAMILY!

If you have an emergency, it doesn’t matter what time it is, someone will be with you on the phone (or another line if you need to call 911) and guide you through the whole process, and either be there to do first aid or a treatment, or go to the ER with you, or stay with you on the phone the whole time until everything is settled.

If someone is hospitalized, your Patient Advocate who knows your history and knows how to navigate the hospitals and the medical system, will help “translate” medical language for you and educate you about what you need to know, or what your doctors may not be telling you or can’t tell you.

The Patient Advocate will also be there to do their best that you get the best care, including making sure that your doctors have your full medical information, keep in touch with specialists on call so you’ll have a 2nd and 3rd opinion right away, and also check and double check that nothing is being missed or overlooked in the care of the patient.

The Patient Advocate Service for hospital/ER/ICU visits is for the member only.

This service could extend to include immediate family members (only for those enrolled in the Preferred and Executive tiers), but those family members need to be pre-registered, and we need to have basic health information for those family members (and the hourly rate also applies).

It is also best if our providers will be added as a 3rd or 4th or 5th backup on your Medical  Special Power of Attorney, so that they will be allowed to get records in your behalf and talk to the other Medical Providers on your behalf. However, all of these will still be done in your presence and with you or your family’s approval.