New Clients
Intake Information
After making your first appointment, you will need to register for our Patient Portal, and then once logged in, complete a series of online questionnaires that provide us with necessary information for billing purposes and for nutrition counseling. These questionnaires will take 30-45 minutes to complete. You can start filling them out, and then save to finish them later. The most important thing is to make sure you submit the questionnaires before the start of your first visit. If you have any questions about these questionnaires, please contact us at 206-853-0534.
Insurance & Pricing Information
All billing will be done through Starkel Nutrition.
The nutritionists at Body Wise Nutrition and Eating Disorders are credentialed with many health insurance carriers (please see below), many of which cover for medical nutrition therapy or preventative services in nutrition. Each insurance company has many different plans, which may or may not cover nutrition. It is your responsibility to know the details of your plan, including whether the plan covers our providers for nutrition, nutritional counseling or dietary surveillance under preventative services.
Please consult with your individual insurance policy to verify your coverage so that you are aware of your responsibilities.
As a courtesy to you, we will bill your insurance company for services at our clinic. You will be responsible for any co-pays due at the time of service, and you will be billed later for remaining balances for deductibles or coinsurance, or visit fees (if your insurance didn’t cover the visit).
​
Here are some general questions you may want to ask your insurance carrier in order to determine your coverage (ensure you collect the customer service representative’s ID/badge number, record the date and time of your call as a way to refer back to with your insurance for any billing questions):
-
Do I have insurance coverage for nutrition, nutritional counseling, medical nutrition therapy or dietary surveillance under preventative services?
-
What is my Out-of-Network and In-Network coverage? Is the clinic, Julie Starkel Nutrition, In-Network?
-
Do I need a PCP (Primary Care Physician) referral or pre-authorization to schedule appointments?
-
Do only certain diagnoses qualify for nutrition counseling coverage? If so, which diagnoses qualify?
-
Do I have a deductible to cover? If so, how much? Do I need to fulfill the deductible before my insurance will begin covering sessions?
-
How many nutrition sessions do I get per year or per lifetime?
-
Do I have a co-pay/coinsurance? If so, how much per visit?
At Body Wise we believe that everyone should have access to our services regardless of insurance coverage. We offer discounted out-of-pocket rates and various packages (which further reduce the rate per session) for clients without insurance coverage. To see our fee schedule, click here »
Starkel Nutrition, the Body Wise Nutrition & Eating Disorders program’s parent company, is credentialed with the following insurance companies. Each plan under these carriers may have different coverage for nutrition, always check with your insurance provider for specific benefits and coverage.
-
Blue Cross Blue Shield
-
Regence Blue Shield
-
Uniform
-
Bridgespan
-
Aetna
-
Kaiser Permanente: Access PPO, Options PPO, or Omni PPO
-
First Choice (some plans)
-
Cigna (some plans)
-
Premera Blue Cross
-
LifeWise
Cancellation/No-Show Policy
We have a 48-hour cancellation policy (or 2 business days; our business days are Monday through Friday), with a $175 late cancellation fee, which cannot be billed to insurance. We try to refill cancelled spots so that we can accommodate all clients waiting to see us. Thank you for helping us do this.
​
To illustrate this: if your appointment is on Monday at 2 pm, we need to hear from you by Thursday at 2 pm to avoid the late cancellation charge.
​
Please let us know as soon as possible if you need to reschedule an appointment. The easiest way to reschedule is to go online by clicking on one of the above links, cancel your current appointment and then reschedule a new one. This option is only available for appointments two days or more out. If you are cancelling within two days of your appointment, or do not want to use the online scheduling tool, please call the office.
Medicare/Medicaid and United Health Care
At this time, we do not accept Medicare or Medicaid as they do not have adequate coverage for nutrition, even if you have secondary insurance with one of the insurance providers noted above. Specifically, they only cover RDNs and not CNs, but more importantly they only cover nutrition services for Diabetes and End Stage Renal Disease.
​
In addition, we do not accept United Health Care as we are considered out-of-network, which means the visit is rarely covered. We can provide you with a Superbill that you can submit for possible reimbursement by Medicare, Medicaid, and/or United Health Care.
Non-insurance Clients
We offer discounted out-of-pocket rates and various packages (which further reduce the rate per session) for clients without insurance coverage. To see our fee schedule, click here »