Frequently Asked Questions
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Q: Can I bring my own lab results instead of having the labs done at your office?
A: You are welcome to bring a copy of your blood work results for us to review, however we require specific labs that include a more precise interpretation for your evaluation and monitoring. These will be ordered by Dr. Hester at your consultation and are additionally required for ongoing measure and monitor during your program.
Q: How do I know if your program and practitioners have worked with my condition and are able to treat me?
A: Our approach focuses on optimization of hormones to safe, optimal levels. Dr. Hester is board certified in Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine, and is a senior board examiner for the Board as well. The vast majority of diseases are caused by lifetime of uninformed decisions (unhealthy diet, emotions, sleep, sun exposure, exercise, stress, environmental poisons, etc.) Our experience tells us that disease conditions dramatically improve with lifestyle counseling, natural remedies and hormone balance. The focus of our practice is to guide patients in decison making for hormonal balance, decreased inflammation, and disease preventon through healthy lifestyle changes.
Q: How do I find an Anti-Aging or Hormone Balancing practice near me?
A: We are able to recommend our qualified colleagues that may be in your state. Unfortunately Board Certified, Anti-Aging trained physicians are scarce throughout the United States. This is why we offer a distance program for our out of area patients.
Scheduling Your Initial Appointment
Before You Schedule
Before you schedule your first appointment, please review the following three important considerations that are often important factors in scheduling appointments for new patients.
Discuss the program and cost information with your family members and obtain any consent you may need.
Be aware of your schedule in order to successfully schedule an appointment. You will need to help us determine an acceptable time & date of your appointment when you speak to our New Patient Consultant.
Be prepared to travel, as you must travel to Dr. Hester's office for the initial visit since we do not have phone consultations for New Patients. Click here for Driving Directions & Lodging Information.
A Commitment That Will Optimize Your Success with Our Program
In our experience, we have found the following elements to enhance the results our patients can achieve through Dr. Hester's practice:
Have an open mind and be ready to work.
We understand that making this first step towards change may be difficult and challenging. We have provided many tools and levels of support in order to make this an easier transition for you. We are ready to coach and support you on your healing path. We rely on you for information to formulate the best plan to meet your goals. Ultimately you need to be aware that it is your responsibility to make the necessary changes in order to be successful.
Keep your commitments.
Following through on commitments that you make to yourself and others is vital when it comes to improving your health.
Health insurance or financial situation.
You have made a wise investment by starting the program at the the office of Dr. Hester. Be Medispa does not accept insurance as the Hormone Balancing Program is considered elective. However, some patients will use a HSA - Health Savings Account. It is your responsibility to know your plan and limitation and exclusions as we do not bill or submit to insurance in any way.
Be on time.
We want you to get the maximum benefit from all of your visits. Being on time for appointments is important. When you are late you miss valuable time with the physician, nutritionist or therapist. Additional appointments may need to be scheduled to cover the missed material. If an emergency occurs and you can't attend, communicate with us as soon as possible. Sometimes an appointment can be changed to a phone consultation with adequate notice.
Commit to required visits.
After your initial visit with our physician, there are follow-up visits which are essential to enhance your chances of success.
Optimize your phone consultations.
You will have opportunity to phone conference with our patient coordinator. If you choose to do your follow-up visits by phone, it is most helpful to have all your materials in front of you. This will maximize your benefit from the consultation.
We will call you at the designated appointment time. Have a notepad ready. Remove as much ambient noise as possible. If you have small children or other people or pets that may demand your attention during the appointment, please arrange for them to be taken care of by someone else during your session. You will enhance the benefits of your consultation if you give it your full attention.
Respect time limits and constraints.
Time Constraints
Each session with a physician, physician assistant, or patient coordinator is scheduled for a specific amount of time and should not exceed that time. Practitioners will do their best to respond to as many questions as possible during the appointment, but they have a responsibility to cover specific information for your benefit. Additional appointments may be scheduled to accommodate additional needs.
Write down questions before your visit.
You can best utilize your time with physicians and therapists if you have given some thought to the information you need.
If you are coming from out of town, figure out transportation and directions ahead of time.
Please make sure you know how to get to the location before your appointment and be certain to have the phone number with you. If you need information prior to your visit on transportation options or directions, we can assist you.
Be aware of our late cancel policy.
We have carefully developed a late cancel and no show policy based on our experience over the years. In order to optimize our ability to schedule appointments and provide service, we ask that you be aware of the requirements for cancellation and the consequences for not coming to a scheduled appointment. This policy assures patient access to appointments in a reliable and timely way. We cannot accept cancellations through email or voice mail. Please call 859-266-5483 to reach a receptionist and speak with a staff member during normal business hours in order for your appointment to be cancelled.
Our Healthy Aging Programs
General Information
FOR WOMEN
- If you continue to have a monthly cycle, hormones should be tested between day 19 and 24 of your cycle depending on the length of cycle. Day one is considered the first day of bleeding.
- Do not remove hormones in patch form.
FOR MEN
See Below
Laboratory Requirements/Instructions
Lab Draw Instructions - VERY IMPORTANT Creams/Gels/Sublinguals/Troches/Drops
- lab draw should be obtained within 4 hours after morning dose or application of hormones.
-Injectables - lab draw should be obtained 3-4 days after injection
-Capsules- lab draw should be obtained the morning after taking capsules the previous evening
LAB RESULTS
A phone conference or office visit must be scheduled for results
For any other tests please review the instructions with us if you have questions.
INSURANCE WARNING for LABS
- Be Medispa DOES NOT participate with any insurance plans, Medicare or Medicaid.
- We offer specialty tests from a variety of lab companies. The price of these tests varies with each individual test.
- The fee for the clinician visit is completely separate from any lab fees.
What is Preventive-aging?
Our population is experiencing a Health Crisis. This is not an isolated problem for a small group of people. It affects everyone we know and everyone we love.
Consider our national health picture:
- 50 percent of Americans will have some form of cancer in their lifetime.
- One in six Americans is either pre-diabetic or diabetic.
- Over Sixty-five percent of Americans are overweight.
- Over ten million Americans are taking anti-depressants.
- 50 percent of people over 85 will have Alzheimer's Disease.
- Someone dies of heart disease every 34 seconds.
- One in six Americans suffers from an Anxiety Disorder.
For decades we have expected prescription drugs to preserve our health and yet in many cases inappropriate prescribing is creating health risk. Think about this: The number of people who die each year due to drugs and surgery is equal to six jumbo jets crashing every day. If that were the case, would you ever fly again? Yet thousands of people visit their doctor daily, hoping to be cured with a drug. Please note that at times drugs are necessary and helpful, yet in our experience, most disease can be effectively prevented without drugs or surgery.
Disease and Premature Death Can Be Prevented By Getting Back To Natural Balance
Preventive-aging medicine and lifestyle counseling can prevent disease. More and more people are realizing this. Last year there were 37 million more visits to medicine practitioners for prevention than conventional medical doctors.
The gradual wasting away of the body over the course of decades is neither necessary nor normal. Rather, it is the natural outcome from a lifetime of uninformed choices. Through unhealthy choices you may actually function and be aging biologically at the same level as someone 15-20 years older. The question is how can you be one of those people who function and age biologically at a level equivalent to someone who is many years younger than you?
The answer can be found at the office of Dr. Paul Hester with a Preventive-Aging Consultation. Depending on how far you wish to go, the office of Dr. Paul Hester offers a number of youthful aging consultative levels. Services are provided one-on-one with the physician and/or directly by his physician assistant.
Youthful Hormone Replenishment
We age, in part, because our hormones decline. Hormones are the body's communication system that regulates cellular functions and genetic expression. You were the healthiest when hormones were at optimal levels in your youthful prime. It is when hormones decline or synthetic hormones are introduced to the body that we see problems. Replenishing a youthful balance with natural bio-identical hormones can restore vitality and delay many aging-related health problems.
This service level provides a comprehensive assessment of your hormone blood levels and related medical history. The doctor will customize your optimum hormone replenishment based upon your specific needs, using only natural bio-identical hormones. All aspects of safe hormone replenishment will be addressed, specifically for you.
Nutritional Lifestyle and Youthful Hormone Replenishment
Obesity is the fastest growing health problem in the U.S. Managing a healthy weight becomes increasingly difficult as we age, and most diets fail because they are not individualized to your needs. This consultation adds a comprehensive nutritional lifestyle evaluation to the hormone replenishment service described above.
A detailed assessment and analysis of your current nutritional lifestyle, and a body composition analysis provide the basis for a customized dietary lifestyle program to achieve your goals. One-on-one physician consultation and instruction covers all aspects of optimal nutrition and safe hormone replenishment, specifically for you.
Everything happens for a reason.
There is a reason you are reading this right now. Your intuition may be pointing you in the right direction, to get you on the path to optimal health so that you have a robust healthy long life ahead of you to enjoy your friends and family and achieve your life purpose. Our individualized Preventive-aging programs have helped people like you totally transform their health. We can help you too with Dr. Hester's Living Younger program.
Dr. Hester offers specialty programs for your success
Comprehensive Preventive-Aging Program
This premiere day-long program is truly for those who aspire to reach their highest level of wellness and delay, prevent, and possibly reverse the degenerative diseases of aging. It is a total body, mind, and spirit approach to wellness. Selected by our patients seeking measurable performance improvement, this is the only way to go if you are serious about experiencing a higher quality of life. The entire day is devoted to you, as you experience a thorough physical examination, comprehensive blood analysis, and biomarker measurements of your physical performance.
Our Comprehensive Preventive-Aging Consultation includes the following integrated professional services:
- Assessment of your medical history and lifestyle
- Comprehensive blood panel for biomarkers of aging, hormone levels, and risk factors
- Complete nutrition analysis
- Physical performance testing and biomarker measurements of functional age
- Biological age (versus chronological age) determination
- Personalized Living Younger Preventive-Aging Manual
- Personal Preventive-Aging Program, including individualized physician recommendations together with one-on-one education in each of the following areas:
o Optimum nutritional lifestyle
o Nutritional supplementation
o Fitness and exercise
o Youthful hormone replenishment using bio-identical hormones
o Longevity lifestyle improvements
o Stress-response management techniques
You will begin functioning equivalent to someone many years younger than you are with a personally customized, physician-supervised program. Many of our patients notice increased energy within the first few weeks.
Ongoing Preventive-Aging Clinical Management
Prevention is most successful when planned in advance. Unlike the conventional approach of seeking medical services after a medical problem develops, preventive-aging medicine encourages proactive intervention. To ensure your lifelong success, we provide ongoing one-on-one physician guidance, monitoring, and clinical support, with renewable semi-annual clinical management agreements.
Annual Preventive-Aging Evaluations
Established patients following their Living Younger Program find a return to the office of Dr. Paul Hester for an annual reassessment to be highly gratifying and motivating. This evaluation provides individuals an opportunity to measure their progress, reassess personal goals, review and fine-tune their Preventive-Aging Program, and receive additional one-on-one physician education.
We offer additional therapies on an as needed basis.
Living Balanced/Younger Program Duration
Program duration is renewable every 6 mos and consists of one office visit per 6 month period along with phone consultations scheduled by the patient as needed to discuss program progress and interventions. Lab evaluations, medication management and lifestyle coaching is provided by one our our medical staff. Patients will have a physical evaluation and re-education visit every 1-2 years while remaining in the program.
Information For People Who Live Out-of-State
Patients travel from all over the country to Dr. Hester's practice. The initial patient visit must be on-site, in order to do a brief physical exam, which is required for all new patients. There are some cases however, where it may be recommended that a patient return to the office. You can receive your evaluation and counseling all on one day.
How Dr. Hester's Preventive-aging Program is Different
We take the time to listen. Our practitioners schedule more time with you than a typical doctor visit for a good reason: To truly understand your condition and assist with physical, emotional and spiritual healing takes time and we go the extra mile for our patients.
We perform an in-depth laboratory analysis and medical history for each patient. Our testing is much more comprehensive than traditional laboratory testing. We also perform an interpretation of the lab values from a functional perspective, because a person may have "normal" values but normal does not always indicate "optimal."
We treat the cause. Our philosophy is to help you find and understand the hidden causes of your health challenges and create a customized treatment plan for you.
We use the healing power of nature with metabolic balancing that stimulates the vital force of the body to heal itself. We do not focus our therapeutic plans on expensive drugs that only suppress the symptoms and can cause many harmful side-effects.
Program Cost
Most people spend more on their car than they do on their health. However, a significant portion of our patients choose to pay out-of-pocket for their visits because they consider their health to be the very best investment they can make. Without your health, all other things in your life, spiritual purpose, family, friends, possessions, hopes and dreams cannot be enjoyed to their fullest.
What is your health worth to you?
What would you pay to add 20 years to your life?
What would you pay to have a slim figure?
What would you pay to avoid a fatal heart attack?
What would you pay to be full of energy and joy?
Optimal health is priceless. Dr. Hester's preventive-aging program is designed to achieve optimal health and can cost less than a weekend spent at a vacation resort!
Realize that such a small sum of money divided over a lifetime of optimal health, amounts to less than your daily coffee or toll fees. Many people spend thousands of dollars per year on restaurants, vacations, automobile expenses or home improvement projects. It makes sense to invest in your self!
Cost of Services:
$465 - Initial Consultation - Choice of Living Balanced/Living Younger
$395-$795 - Program Retainers - semi-annual every 6 mos. An active retainer program is required for ANY ongoing medication managment and professional monitoring.
We do NOT submit to amy health insurer including Medicare/Medicaid.
Medicare and Medicaid have strict governmental regulations that physicians are to follow standards of medical care. This means, if the Medicare providers use natural medicine instead of pharmaceutical drugs with Medicare or Medicaid patients, they can be fined for millions of dollars and be sent to federal prison. We deeply regret not being able to accommodate Medicare or Medicaid patients but we cannot afford to take this risk.
All patients over the age of 65 must pay out of pocket for their visits. We do not bill any form of insurance for people over 65 because there is still a chance that if the primary insurance is dropped and the patient submits the bills to Medicare, then we will be liable for Medicare fines for practicing natural medicine.
Tax Deductible Vehicles
Our programs do not focus on disease, but rather on maintaining and optimizing health. the office of Dr. Paul Hester specializes exclusively in preventive-aging clinical services and is not a provider for primary care medical services. We do not treat acute or emergency medical conditions. Consequently, insurance companies and the government do not cover professional fees, prescriptions or laboratory tests.
Since the office of Dr. Paul Hester does not accept insurance or Medicare, you may want to consider programs designed to give individuals tax advantages, which help offset healthcare costs, such as Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs), Health Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs), and Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs)
- Health Flexible spending accounts (FSA). A health FSA may receive contributions from an eligible individual; employers may also contribute. Contributions are not included in income. Reimbursements from an FSA used to pay qualified medical expenses are not taxed
- Medical Spending Accounts (MSA). An Archer MSA may receive contributions from an eligible individual and his/her employer, but not both in the same year. Contributions by the individual are deductible whether or not the individual itemizes deductions. Employer contributions are not included in income. Distributions from and MSA used to pay qualified medical expenses are not taxed
- Healthcare Spending Accounts (HSA). An HSA may receive contributions from an eligible individual or any other person, including an employer or a family member, on behalf of an eligible individual. Contributions, other than employer contributions, are deductible on the eligible individual's return whether or not the individual itemizes deductions. Employer contributions are not included in income. Distributions from an HSA used to pay qualified medical expenses are not taxed
- Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRA). An HRA must receive contributions from the employer only; employees may not contribute. Contributions are not includible in income. Reimbursements from an HRA used to pay qualified medical expenses are not taxed
- Some medical expenses may be eligible for tax deduction on the 1040 Schedule A. The IRA website is http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p502.pdf
the office of Dr. Paul Hester encourages you to have a primary care physician. We are happy to work in cooperation with your physicians upon request.
What You Can Expect Of Our Practice
1. Confidentiality
All of our interactions, conversations, email, faxes, etc, will remain strictly confidential, meaning that we will not share any information provided by you with anyone without your consent. For more information about confidentiality see the HIPAA guidelines.
2. Professional Care
We will seek to increase your chances of achieving the highest level of wellness possible, as described extensively on our website at www.bemedispa.com. Be assured that all our practitioners have the highest levels of integrity and professionalism. We are adamant about delivering high value to all our patients, and view this is a continuous process of collaboration. We will assess the ongoing benefits of our services with you.
Helpful Approaches to Increase Your Success
You have control over what you eat, choose wisely.
There is no substitute for a daily dose of sunlight, fresh air, exercise and a good night's sleep.
The quantity of water that you drink will have a profound impact on your health. Please be sure to drink enough pure water
Eat your foods as fresh and organic as possible.
An awareness of the experience of eating and an expression of gratitude for what you are eating will help increase nutritional intuition
There are two basic ways to improve health- put good food in and leave junk food out.
How To Schedule Your First Appointment
To schedule your first appointment, you will need to fill out the following forms, after which our Guestservices Director will contact you to schedule the initial appointment.
Not Sure You Want to Schedule?
If you are unsure about scheduling an appointment, and have questions that were not addressed by this introduction, please feel free to contact us through this website. Our Guestservices Director will then contact you to answer any questions you may have. The information obtained through our form is for in-office use only and will be kept confidential. Click here to fill out the New Patient Inquiry Form.
We applaud your interest in joining the wellness revolution and look forward to serving you.
Location and Directions
The Office of Dr. Paul Hester is located at:
812 East High Street
Lexington, Kentucky 49475
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