5 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR WELLNESS PROVIDER (PRACTITIONER) BEFORE YOU BOOK WITH THEM

 

By Jon Yaneff, CNP, WellnessWrx Sage Staff Writer

It seems more and more people are looking for alternatives to conventional medicine as a solution for their health problems. They want to turn their problems into a wellness solution!

The conventional system of medicine, or mainstream medicine, is where medical doctors and other healthcare professionals like nurses, therapists, and pharmacists are trained in treating a person’s disease and symptoms. Whereas a holistic health practitioner, referred to as a wellness provider, will treat the ‘whole’ person. 

In general, people are waking up to the pitfalls and side effects of constantly taking pills, and pharmaceutical influence and recognizing that there are other choices available to them with natural approaches and solutions.

What is Holistic Medicine?

How do You choose the right option?

However, with many choices, many people still do not realize there are other options available to them. Mostly because they have not been exposed to the options. Therefore, they do not realize they have a choice in creating their wellness path.

What is holistic medicine? It is a form of healing that is patient-centered, and focuses on every part of their health, including mental wellness, emotional wellness, physical wellness, and spiritual wellness.

People are choosing alternative medicine to complement their conventional treatment, while others have a team of holistic wellness providers that help treat their health problems when they need them.

Did you know that there are many health services often known as modalities? These specially trained wellness providers have been around even longer than those that practice mainstream medicine.

In the category of alternative, complementary and holistic, you will often find wellness providers like optometrist, physiotherapist, or chiropractor placed within the mainstream wellness spectrum. Your wellness provider, or holistic health provider, can specialize in the following modalities:

• Acupuncture
• BodyTalk
• Chiropractor
• Coaching
• Craniosacral Therapy
• Fitness
• Holistic Nutrition
• Homoeopathy
• Hypnotherapy
• Meditation
• Osteopathy
• Personal Training
• Physiotherapy
• Psychotherapy
• Psychology
• Registered Massage Therapy
• Rubenfield Synergy
• Traditional Chinese Medicine
• Reiki
• Yoga
• And Much, Much More…

One of the huge benefits of choosing providers is the choice in wellness they offer you. So, how do you choose a wellness provider when you may not know what each provider offers in the way of wellness?

Emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually; the opportunities to create a team of nurturing your wellness path is limitless. For example, did you know reiki is excellent for mental and emotional wellness? Acupuncture is another good one that can help with headaches, and chronic pain, especially in your back. It can even help you sleep.

It can be overwhelming when you are simply searching the Internet for an answer to your health problem. You’re thinking about a lot of things, including some of these questions?

Who do you choose as your provider? How will the wellness providers help you with your specific needs? How do you know if they are qualified to treat you? And, are they even insured to treat you?

Let’s explore options, as you will learn everything you need to know before you book with any wellness provider.

1. Consider the Whole Person:

Wellness providers spend a considerable amount of time to get to know your health history, simply by talking to you, asking you questions, and ensuring that you feel at ease with them and their methodology and training.

Many of them ask about your previous health conditions; what medications and supplements you are taking; what your diet is like; and what symptoms you currently experience. They will also want you to talk about your sleep habits, stress levels, and personal and professional concerns. They want to know what drives you, and your wellness goals.

Many such as, Homeopaths will also consider your mental and emotional symptoms, and spiritual perspective during a session. Also, your personal trainer, or yoga instructor may suggest modifications to help you perform a particular exercises.

Holistic nutritionist, naturopaths, and others who have added functional medicine to their practice may even use genetic testing to help determine the best supplements and approach based on your DNA.

In other words, you’re not just another patient, and everything about you is important, not just the symptoms and the disease.

Holistic health providers aim to heal the person, not the disease.

2. Referrals:

Find Them Through Referral This Validates Their Ability

When it comes to a holistic health provider it is important to choose the right one. And, how do you find the right fit?

A referral from a person you know and trust is the key! Doing a mass browser search can fill you with options and choices, but how do you filter that to accredited, and a fit that might be for you?

If you are going to do a search on the Internet, don’t search the type of provider you’re looking for, or your symptoms to see what comes up. Find a reputable referral website that specializes in wellness and wellness providers that are accredited and insured.

See who drives that referral site, is it a developer who is in the wellness industry and has taken the time, and has the passion and knowledge to seek out wellness providers and their modalities that can be of benefit to you.

Sometimes a reputable referral site in the wellness industry is a better choice to find the right fit since it gives you more options that the one or two referrals a friend can offer.

Are you looking for providers that are local and from your area? Or are you willing to travel an hour or more, to see them? After all, if you were to be treated by a doctor who is a specialist in their field, you may travel up to an hour or more to see them.

Why not consider seeking other options and choices for all your wellness needs as a preventative not just when your symptoms arise? 

Imagine choosing wellness on a referral website that specializes in wellness just for you. This makes the experience of the ‘referral’ and ‘word-of-mouth’ much more valuable and beneficial for you! With all wellness providers in one place that offers different options for wellness needs. There are only a few platforms that offer referrals that is specific to wellness providers and their services.

It is important that the wellness referral website specializes in wellness while being able to connect you to the right provider for you to choose the right fit for you!

Referral websites such as www.wellnesswrx.ca, search out and confirm the provider’s accreditation before they refer you to the providers on their website. This is key to helping you build a team of excellent wellness providers who can help you with all your wellness solutions.

3. Accredited Credentials:

In today’s society, it is one thing to have a passion for something, but it is another to have the appropriate credentials as well.

Whether it is a chiropractor, naturopathic doctor, or holistic nutritionist, or any of the providers we’ve mentioned in this article, a wellness provider must have graduated from an accredited school in their field of choice. If needed, they have also passed a number of qualifying exams, while also being certified with a specific board or governing body.

At the same time, your provider may go above and beyond their initial certification or diploma by taking more courses and obtaining additional credentials and certifications. For instance, your naturopathic doctor may have decided to also go to school for holistic nutrition or homoeopathy.

Maybe your psychotherapist or psychologist also specializes in craniosacral therapy or Reiki. You may find a chiropractor who is also a physiotherapist, or an acupuncturist. Make sure you find out that your provider didn’t just take a weekend course to get that extra certification. Know that a lot of work goes into obtaining these extra skills.

It is important to know that they further upgrade their skills to better guide their patients and clients, just like you!

4. Experienced in Their Field:

When selecting a holistic health provider, the experience is also something to consider as well. This means they have a track record with a lot of clinical experience. As a result, your provider has successfully treated a number of patients or clients.

At the same time, an experienced wellness provider is always looking to grow and upgrade their knowledge set, year after year. This can mean your wellness provider is going to workshops and conferences and constantly reading up on the latest research to further develop their craft as a provider.

When your provider is frequently growing and learning; everyone wins, especially you!

5. Insurance:

You may not know this but there are many wellness providers that do not know that there is insurance coverage in Canada for their practice. This can result in many of them not being insured.

You want to rest at night knowing your wellness provider has insurance to practice. Today, there are few insurance companies that specialize in providing insurance plans to wellness providers in the world of holistic medicine.

As a result, wellness providers who have completed accredited education can be insured to practice, and therefore covered under malpractice insurance.

Why is it important that your holistic health provider have insurance? Insurance for wellness or holistic providers is the same for medical doctors, and therefore it is mandatory that they are covered to practice.

Just think, if a doctor or wellness provider has been approved by an insurance company, this means that they are not only insured to practice, but that the insurance company has carefully examined their credentials, schooling, and other accredited certificates that are required for that doctor and wellness provider to be accepted into practice.

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Here’s one last thought to keep in mind—your wellness provider/holistic practitioner has your best interest at heart! They want to find the root cause of your problem and offer you a choice for wellness solutions.

Do your homework when selecting a wellness provider, like your medical doctor. When you find the one that’s a good fit for you, two things happen: One, your success to wellness; emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually, is much greater. And two, which is the most important point to this whole article, you are now finding options to choose wellness solutions that are offered to benefit the “whole” you!