Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Neither Dr. Irwin or Dr. Razi accept insurance, though they will both fill out paperwork for you to submit if you have PPO coverage. Dr. Irwin is our pediatrician and his fees are very low compared to other doctors. (Usually $100 a visit, plus any vaccinations or homeopathic treatments). I've never had any issue getting it reimbursed.
In my research when I was pregnant with our first they are the ONLY two doctors in the DC area that follow such a wholistic approach.
Which PPO do you have that reimburses? I'm assuming it's only at like 60 or 75 percent and the rest is out of pocket?
I have Kaiser PPO (not just HMO). They reimburse 70 percent which means we typically pay $30 a visit which is on par with using someone in network ($30 copay). He doesn't push unnecessary appointments on you and will talk by phone or email easily (within limits) so we don't end up having a lot of appointments or paying a ton. (our son is generally well). Of course we have to meet our deductible though. It's really worth it to be able to chose how and when to do vaccinations, see a doctor who really gets to know you and who practices evidence based medicine and who pays attention to how the entire family is doing. We also had a homebirth (and planning a second) and I'd heard such horror stories of moms taking their healthy newborns to conventional practices and being chastised for homebirths or worse being sent to the hospital that it was very important to me to find someone who would be supportive like Dr. Irwin.
he doesn't have any staff so you schedule with him and deal only with him - leave a voicemail before certain hours and he will call you back, or page if it's urgent (there is a fee for a page, but I think that's just so that you don't abuse it, we've only paged once and we didn't get charged). he also doesn't have full time hours, but this has never been a problem for us. I think Dr. Razi has a similar arrangement from what I've heard.
BTW, I think Dr. Irwin had mentioned a sliding scale for people who have trouble paying and don't have insurance. This didn't apply to us, so I don't know anything else.