My Healthy Bites Nutrition Services, PLLC is run by a Registered Dietitian (RD). RD’s are considered nutrition experts by the medical community. There are many people that claim to be a nutritionists, but the term “nutritionist” is not legally regulated (meaning anyone can use it – no background knowledge or degree required). Only an RD is medically and legally qualified to give out Medical Nutrition Therapy. You can check out the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics website for a better understanding of the qualifications to be a Registered Dietitian.
My Healthy Bites also offers services in-person or tele-health services (where we communicate via the internet using webcams). All services and counseling are tailored to meet your personal needs (not a one-size fits all approach).
There a variety of services offered to help meet all your nutritional needs. Our goal is to help you live a healthy lifestyle. This may require changes on your part, be we can work together to develop a plan that works for you.
Depending on your specific needs, My Healthy Bites could help you develop a lifestyle:
For more information on why you might want to see a dietitian – check out this article from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics “10 Reasons to See a Registered Dietitian”
My Healthy Bites does accept some, but not all medical insurances. Even if your insurance is accepted, unfortunately some insurance companies do not cover nutrition services, or they may not cover your specific reason for wanting/needing nutrition services (you will need to check with your insurance company). Please contact My Healthy Bites to find out if your medical insurance is accepted.
If My Healthy Bites does not accept your insurance, you will be provided with paperwork that you can submit to your insurance company to be reimbursed for your visits (if the insurance company does reimburse for the service). To be reimbursed, you will need a referral from your doctor (My Healthy Bites can provide you with the referral for your doctor to fill out). You will need to pay for the service up-front if your insurance is not accepted.
*My Healthy Bites can make no guarantees about insurance reimbursement.
Each insurance company is different, and may have different policies of what services it chooses to reimburse. While some diseases such as diabetes, and chronic kidney disease are often covered with a physician’s diagnosis and referral, other conditions may be covered by your insurance as well (high blood pressure, obesity, high cholesterol, etc). Insurance often does not cover 100% of the fee, so you would be responsible for any difference. (If My Healthy Bites does not accept your insurance, and your insurance does cover for your services, you will be able obtain reimbursement directly from your insurance provider). *Many flex-spending accounts and other health savings accounts allow you to pay for Registered Dietitian services with the funds. Many private plans also have preventative benefits that will cover a nutrition appointment even if you do not have nutrition benefits under your insurance policy.
Unfortunately, our current healthcare model is one in which our medical system tends to be more “reactive” rather than “proactive and preventative”. To keep costs down, many insurance companies choose to only cover for “sick care”, rather than education and prevention care. Nutrition Services are often a way to help prevent complications and diseases in the future. In some cases (diabetes, kidney diseases) nutrition services are necessary to manage a disease and so these are usually covered by insurances. There are many diseases (high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, food allergies, obesity) where nutrition intervention should be the primary medical intervention. However, the medical team is able to control medication and procedures more closely, so these type of costs usually take precedence over education and lifestyle change.
This will be a personal choice for each individual to make. Keep in mind that insurance companies are a business, their primary concern is to keep costs down. Your primary concern should be have a good quality of life, and being able to enjoy for many more years. In the long run, you can save yourself money (all those co-pays for doctor visits, and medications) by taking control of your health now.
My Healthy Bites requires payment at the time of service for in person interactions, or prior to the service for tele-health services. Please keep in mind that any change of appointment date, time, or cancellation requires 24 hour notice. This allows us to offer your time someone else. If you do not provide 24 hours notice of change/cancellation – you will be billed a fee of $25.
If you have checked with your insurance carrier – and your appointment will be covered, go to schedule an appointment – when scheduling, schedule an insurance based appointment.
If your insurance will not cover your appointment, or you do not have medical insurance – go to Pricing and packages . There are counseling packages available, and packages that combine several counseling sessions at a reduced cost to you.
*To provide Medical Nutrition Therapy (MNT), a Registered Dietitian must follow state licensure laws. For this reason, My Healthy Bites can only provide MNT to people in New York State, or a state that allows dietitians from other states to see clients in their state (ex. Virginia, Texas, etc).
*My Healthy Bites follows HIPPA guidelines in the handling of all Personal Health Information (PHI). Special care is taken to assure the programs used to transmit your health data is HIPPA compliant to protect your privacy. If you are requested to transmit your information via a particular program, or type of technology, this is the reason why.
Medical Nutrition Therapy ~ The assessment of nutritional status of a person in order to benefit their personal health by developing a personal plan that includes nutrition education, and teaching strategies to help them manage their own healthy lifestyle.
Tele-health Services ~ a virtual face to face meeting where the two parties use webcams to interact over the computer. This is the new wave in healthcare to provide information and education to more people, and has become very popular. To use telehealth services, you must have a PC with a webcam installed, and a reliable, fairly high speed internet connection. Most new laptops already have a web-cam, but if you don’t have one they are fairly cheap at most electronic stores, and pretty easy to install.
