FAQs

  • No. Your doctor will be accessible and appointments will be readily available. Each doctor will have a limited number of patients in her panel in order to ensure that we can provide specialized care to each and every patient.

  • AUTHENTIC membership is $3,500 per year. Member’s children ages 18-25 can be added for an additional $1500 per adult child. New patients pay a one-time $250 registration fee. Please be advised that renewing patients pay a 3% fee charged for credit card payments. Payments are paid annually by check, ACH direct debit, or credit card.

    Membership ensures that there are no additional charges for office visits, virtual care, or any other communication with your doctor. This means there are no co-pays.

  • No. AUTHENTIC does not accept insurance payment for our medical services. Rather our stated services are covered by our annual fee.

  • The following services are included in the annual fee:

    An initial visit to your doctor to complete a comprehensive review of your medical history and to perform a physical examination. During this visit you and your doctor will collaborate on developing your plan of care.

    An annual physical examination with associated lab tests* conveniently drawn on-site including a complete blood count, comprehensive chemistry panel, diabetes screening, cholesterol panel, and a thyroid screening test.

    Women’s health care including breast exams and pap smears

    Sick-visits as needed

    Follow-up visits as needed

    Management of chronic conditions and associated in-person or virtual visits

    Coordination of medical care with your specialists

    Convenient on-site Point of Care (POC) testing with immediately available results including urine dipstick, pregnancy testing, strep, covid and flu testing

    Convenient on-site vaccine administration*

    Convenient on-site EKG as part of the annual physical examination when indicated

    *additional lab tests (excluding the labs included with your annual physical) and all vaccines will be billed directly to your insurance by the NMH lab and Vaxcare, respectively.

    OPTIONAL InBody 970 quarterly body composition analysis is available for an additional $200 annually.

  • Yes! Your insurance will be billed directly for lab work that is not part of annual visit and for all vaccines administered in our office and for all screening and diagnostic testing not done in our office. You will also need your insurance for specialist visits, emergency room visits and hospitalizations.

  • Some patients use their health savings accounts to pay the annual fee.

  • You may reach your Authentic IM doctor directly during regular office hours via phone, text message through our secure app, or messaging through MyChart which populates directly into your medical record. You can also reach your doctor directly after hours for emergency care.

  • Appointment scheduling is available by phone call, by sending a message on our secure practice app, or through MyChart. Appointments are available on your time - same day or next day Monday through Friday is typical. Ample time is allotted for appointments.

  • Yes! AUTHENTIC uses the EPIC electronic medical record (EMR). If you have been a patient at Northwestern Medicine, all of your medical records are seamlessly available for us to review. If you have been seen at another institution that uses EPIC it is likely that we will have access to your records via the “Care Everywhere” portal in EPIC.

  • A huge part of our mission is to keep patients out of the emergency room and to avoid unnecessary, often inefficient and duplicative, urgent care centers by providing timely and appropriate care. However, emergencies do happen. AUTHENTIC patients can receive emergency care at any facility in which they have coverage and AUTHENTIC doctors will be available for consultation by phone with any emergency care physicians. Emergency room care will be billed directly to your insurance.

  • We will coordinate closely with the inpatient (hospitalist) team at the hospital where you are admitted. Given our privileges at Northwestern facilities, our shared medical record system, and our long-term relationships with these hospital teams, this coordination is seamless if hospitalized at a Northwestern Medicine facility.

  • We are on the medical staff at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Central DuPage Hospital.

  • AUTHENTIC doctors are not available to make house calls at this time.

  • No. We are neither an integrative nor functional medicine practice. We are board certified, internal medicine physicians.