Research-Integrated
Long COVID Care

For now, yes. While we are currently focusing on Long COVID care, we plan to expand our care offerings to additional patient groups (i.e. those with POTS, ME/CFS, MCAS, IBS, etc. not associated with COVID) in the future.

Yes. Treatment of Long COVID is a journey, there is no magic bullet that works for everyone with Long COVID (yet). Due to the thoroughness of the evaluation, the complexity of the illness and the time it may take to get certain testing or outside referrals completed, we ask for patients to commit to four months with us. If you are able to travel to cities where we have neurology partners, some testing can be done much faster, but often at a higher out of pocket cost.

During the consultation, you and your provider will review your medical history & symptoms and determine what labs and testing are needed, and any specialist referrals. Visit two with your provider occurs when all or most of the lab results are back so they can be reviewed with you and the best protocols for treatments, and any additional testing or referrals.
Visit two is generally where your provider will order any prescriptions or supplements that are part of your plan through our partner pharmacies or supplement distributors. You pay your prescription invoice & our partnered pharmacy and/or supplement distributor fills your prescription order & ships directly to you. Our partner pharmacy will charge you the GoodRX coupon price if your insurance doesn’t cover a medication. If the medication costs >$50 despite the coupon & it is helping your symptoms, we will submit an insurance prior authorization to try and get the medication covered for the following month, however, prior authorizations for off label use of medications may often be denied – we cannot guarantee insurance coverage, just work with you to try to reduce medication costs and find any alternatives as best we can.

All appointments with your RTHM team are virtual/telehealth visits. You may need to go to a nearby lab to have blood (and possibly urine or saliva) tests done, imaging, or certain specialist consults conducted. Your RTHM team will work with you to locate a specialist, imaging center, lab, or arrange for a mobile phlebotomist to come draw your labs at your home for a fee.

No, RTHM does not replace your primary care physician. We focus on complex illness medicine rather than primary care and will do our best to coordinate WITH your primary care physician to care for your Long COVID symptoms and conditions. As our providers are experts in complex illness medicine, we recommend seeing your primary care physician for age-appropriate cancer & disease screenings and management, as well as for acute issues (e.g. urinary tract infection, strep throat, etc.).

You can, but it is generally recommended that you have health insurance because the costs of some lab tests, imaging, procedures, specialist referrals and medications required for a good outcome in your care can add up to multiple thousands of dollars quickly (budget $10k in year 1 to be safe).
**Please note, patients with Kaiser Permanente insurance, VA or TriCare insurances, and certain Medicare plans will likely have to pay cash for most of their testing unless they have a physician in their respective healthcare network who is willing to order what we recommend for you through your network and/or fight for coverage. Such plans only cover labs, procedures, imaging, and medications ordered by their own providers performed at their own labs, filled at their own pharmacies, etc. We are not contracted or in network with any health insurance provider at this time.

Your Flexible Spending Account (FSA) or Health Spending Account (HSA) can be used to pay for any costs associated with your care through RTHM – (i.e. monthly subscription costs, lab work, imaging, procedures or other testing, medications, supplements, etc.).

You will have access to our patient portal, your health plan summary from each provider visit, your health history summary, health metrics, vital signs, lab and imaging results. Research data used for diagnostics development is not available for download until we have published it. You will have the ability to download your clinical data and/or share it with your providers outside of RTHM (we encourage this!).