New Patient Visits: First visits can take up to 1½ hours. Depending on the patient’s needs, the emphasis will either be on homeopathy or osteopathy together with appropriate life-style recommendations. Please read the How To Report Symptoms page or the printed information which was sent to you by mail. Bring copies of recent laboratory work and other relevant medical reports as well as a list of all medications and supplements. Allow some extra time before your first visit to complete a patient registration form. The fees for a new patient visit are in the $385 to $475 range.   Initial visits for infants and children generally take less time and the fee is adjusted accordingly. Three business days notice is required to cancel a new patient visit. Fees for return visits vary based on the number and kind of procedures performed. Please call the office for details.

Dr. Masiello’s practice is office-based only, so patients are urged to maintain contact with conventional physicians for emergencies requiring hospitalizations, specialty consultation, surgery, diagnostic testing, gynecological services and routine cancer screening. He practices an integration of classical homeopathy and traditional osteopathy. Although homeopathy has been around for over 200 years, it is now considered to be alternative or non-conventional. Voice mail messages can be left 24 hours a day and he is available to established patients with urgent medical problems by cell phone.

Health Insurance: We do not accept insurance payments nor do we participate in any networks or plans such as HMOs, PPOs, Workman’s Compensation, No-Fault, Disability Plans or Medicaid. The practice is currently closed to new Medicare patients and patients on disability.

Billing: Your treatment usually includes a medical office visit and an osteopathic treatment. You will be given a receipt that contains the procedure and diagnostic codes required for insurance reimbursement. Attach the receipt to your insurance claim form and mail to your insurance company.

Payment: Charges for all components of your treatment are due at the time of your visit. Cash, personal checks and credit cards (Master Card, Visa) are accepted. Patients are responsible for charges even if their deductible has not been met. There is no charge for a single dose of a remedy (pellets) dispensed at the time of the office visit. There is a fee for tinctures, liquid remedies and remedy tablets.  A separate receipt will be issued for medication charges.

Receipts: You will be given a receipt that contains all the necessary procedure, diagnosis and provider identification information needed to submit to your insurance company.  Attach this receipt to your insurance claim form and mail to your insurance carrier.

Cancelled or Missed Appointments: There is a fee for a missed office visit or for visits cancelled within less than 24 hours. Monday appointments must be cancelled on the previous Friday to avoid a cancellation fee.

Lateness: The methods Dr. Masiello uses are labor-intensive and require the allotted time to complete so please maximize your experience by being on time. If you are late for your appointment and if the next patient has arrived early, the next patient may be seen during your appointment time in an effort to preserve the rest of the day’s schedule and not shortchange any one patient.

Phone Consultations: There is a $45 fee for phone consultations. Payment by credit card is required for the consultation during regular office hours. Phone consultations after office hours will be billed to you by mail. If the remedy prescribed during the phone consultation has not worked, you will be asked to come to the office for treatment. The $45.00 fee will be deducted from the office visit fee so you will not pay twice for the same episode. Remedy kits for home prescribing are available via a link from this website.

A Word About Fees:  Dr. Masiello is dedicated to making holistic medicine available at a reasonable cost. He  has set his prices below the fees listed in the Fair Health database. For instance, the Fair Health fee for a complex, new patient visit is $600. Dr. Masiello’s fee is $475. Likewise, the Fair Health fee for osteopathic manipulation of 3 body areas is $205. Dr. Masiello’s fee is $185. Return visits are based on the patient’s individual response to treatment and not on a fixed schedule. Homeopathy and osteopathy are used together to make the process time efficient and cost effective. The interval between visits increases as the patient responds to homeopathic remedies in the high potency range.

What is Fair Health? The following is taken from the Fair Health website – “FAIR Health was established in response to then-New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s investigation into one of the insurance industry’s methods for determining reimbursement rates for patients who seek care from out-of-network providers. The investigation determined that such reimbursement policies were conflict-laden, potentially flawed, and opaque to patients seeking cost information.  FAIR Health was created to serve as an independent, objective, and transparent source of healthcare reimbursement data for consumers, insurers, healthcare providers, researchers, analysts, and policymakers.” Patients can go to their website at www.fairhealthconsumer.org and search for reasonable fees based on procedure code and the doctor’s zipcode.