Practice Style
At the heart of this practice is a belief that every person has a right to receive health care.
Over the years Dr Wulsin has been credentialed with every major health plan in Washington State and experienced the third-party reimbursement system common to managed care and most insurance plans. He has learned that this system of reimbursement creates several obstacles to care. These result in many forms of denied access:
- For those not insured
- To those who wish to be treated as a person rather than a diagnosis
- Additional cost for overall care in the range of 20-30%. (NDs and acupuncturists are not currently covered by more cost effective medicare and medicaid.)
Upon returning to practice from a two year MPH program, Dr. Wulsin faced an ethical dilemma.
Continue to support the dysfunctional yet dominant medical-business model of third party reimbursement OR practice with the values and principals that are more personally coherent.
He chose the latter. This is more consistent to the goals that most patients/clients are seeking for their own health.
Consequently, this office does not bill third party insurers for fees or services provided. A fee schedule is available upon request. As a client, your costs are based upon actual time spent, not by a predetermined fee for service determined by diagnostic or procedure code. Payment is expected at the time of service provided. Nobody will be denied care due to inability pay. Everyone has a right to the best care that possible. A sliding scale according to accessible income and assets can be set up upon request. In some cases, particularly with psychological trauma mitigation for Veterans and their family members, ear acupuncture treatments are offered on a donation basis.
A “concierge” or annual fixed fee for open access to care/treatment is also available.
As described above, the idea of treating the person rather than the disease is part of the a foundation of this practice. This invokes a “person-centered” approach that empowers the patient/client with choices that allow her/him to attain their health goals. This is a “healing” approach as contrasted with a disease treatment approach. As a physician I have been trained to support healing outcomes in all phases of living. I enjoy working with individuals facing chronic and long term conditions, life transitions including palliative care, autoimmune conditions and psychosomatic symptoms.