Dr Khaleed I Ep #2 | Landscape of certified naturopathic physicians in the US

a naturopathic doctor in a sea of health consultants for now stay tuned and enjoy the rest of this episode i said dr khalid what is the incentives for people to get into naturopathies because i know that in the us having naturopathic health care is different from one state to another um so in your state for example how how is it incentivized for people to to actually come and see you so in my state i’m recognized as a primary care physician right so in the state of portland oregon where i practice i have full prescription rights full lab water rights so what that means is if you come to me and you need medicine for your hypertension you need a pharmaceutical i can prescribe that right i have the full ability to pull out a prescription pad and write you a prescription for any drug that i want to write for that means if you come to my office with an injury i can send you to a radiologist with my prescription pad and send you to go get a colonoscopy i can send you go get an extra i can send you go get an mri i have all the same rights that a that a physician that a regular mddo has which is awesome which is the way it should and when we think about how people come to find me there’s a few ways so like for one again in this state i can accept insurance right that’s not the case with everywhere but when people come to see me they can use their insurance to pay for their visits just like they would for a regular doctor another way or a lot of a lot of people are finding me on um on social media or on the internet yeah and then they come to me in that way why do you think that some other states don’t recognize they don’t empower naturopathic doctor as much as as you are oh man it’s a long subject i mean i think it comes back to a lot of misconception about what naturopathic medicine is so a lot of people don’t realize or recognize that if you are going to see a licensed naturopathic doctor that person went to a four-year medical school yeah so again i make that distinction about the licensed naturopathic doctor because it is possible to get a naturopathic degree online in a number of months and call yourself a naturopathic doctor but these individuals don’t have any adequate training they they have not gone through a medical degree they have not dissected cadavers they have not done medical rotations in hospitals like i have done and so one thing that i always tell people if you’re looking for a naturopathic doctor make sure that you are getting a licensed naturopathic doctor because when you work with a licensed naturopathic doctor that’s an individual who’s gone through a four-year medical degree has passed licensing exams and is certified by a state licensing board so just to touch on that so you say certified by a licensed board so how can they verify that is there like a regulatory body or someone that monitors that exactly yeah so in oregon for example the oregon regulating body is i think the oregon board of naturopathic medicine and it is a state license regulating board to which i have to submit my yearly continuing education credits for i’ve got like a code of ethics that i have to follow i i had to submit the fact that i passed my licensing exams i have to um carry malpractice insurance you know all these different requirements that i have to hit to be accredited or certified by my state licensing or regulating body yeah i think it’s important for people to know that because these days anyone can be certified online because of online courses so there should be some sort of pathway for them to do their own research to see how they get uh the certification right yeah and as we talk about that i mean i know this is a big international audience but and so for example like in the united states there are 50 different states and then we also have like the federal government which oversees all of the states and um at the current time this is like a state by state issue yeah and so for example like in the state of oregon i’m a licensed physician however if i were to move back to my home state of new york city or new york state i would no longer be a licensed physician because in the state of new york they don’t recognize naturopathic doctors or naturopathic physicians and so one of the reasons why that is important or significant is because when they don’t recognize the naturopathic profession that opens the door for people who’ve been quote unquote certified online doctors so in the state of oregon you can only call yourself a naturopathic doctor if you went to a four-year medical school and you are licensed by a government sanctioned state licensing body however if you go to an unlicensed state like new york then you can grab a degree online and call yourself a naturopathic doctor and confuse people and it makes it more difficult for people to tell the difference between a licensed physician and somebody who got a certification online in a number of months it can be a very confusing landscape especially because now i i’m thinking okay so what what if i’m certified in the state of oregon but i’m dealing with clients that are from new york i guess it becomes very confusing at that point it really does for example the way i do it as somebody who’s licensed in the state of oregon is i hold my medical license in oregon my physical practice is in the state of oregon i have an office in oregon where patients come see me and i do everything that i do with patients however i work with clients around the world right and so the difference is if you are physically in the state of oregon and you you travel to come see me then you are my patient yeah however if you are outside of the state of oregon then you are my client right right i am not your doctor if you’re not in the state of oregon i am a health care professional who can provide you guidance but i’m not your physician if you’re not in the state of oregon and i cannot technically be your physician because i’m not licensed in your state or if i’m working with somebody who’s international again i’m working adjunctively to their local physician but i’m not replacing their doctor so can you practice in any of the 22 states um so if i want to practice and have quote unquote patients in different states then i need to get my license in that state right which is annoying and it’s the same thing with medical doctors right so mds and do’s who want to practice in different states they often will have multiple medical licenses in these various states wow it’s pretty expensive it’s it’s not the best system yeah i think that the american healthcare system is a lot more complex and complicated yeah you know the dissatisfaction rate of the healthcare system in the u.s is just crazy i think it’s more than 80 percent people are dissatisfied i i’ve been speaking to some of my friends in in the us and then it sometimes take two weeks for you to be able to just see a medical doctor and within two weeks a lot of build up can happen so it’s it’s normal and and i guess that’s something that needs to be done yeah it’s it’s crazy it’s tricky like in malaysia you could just walk around the corner and you’ll find 10 gps that are just open 24 hours so i said dr khalid what are some of your personal challenges as a naturopathic doctor looking at your clients and dealing with their skepticism it’s interesting i thought i would originally when i first started but the reality is is that people want to take less pharmaceuticals and people do not like the conventional medical system with that being said the other reality that you have to accept is that what you’re doing is not going to be for everybody and so while there are going to be people who are skeptical of what i do there are enough people who do believe and who do want these type of services that i don’t really have time or energy to deal with the skeptics because if i put my energy there then i’m helping less people who want the support yeah so there are skeptics but it doesn’t change my schedule it doesn’t change the demand that i have for my services because again this is the approach that people want and research shows over and over that people would prefer this type of approach to medicine over the conventional side the issue comes down to like affordability and accessibility rather than skepticism interesting and um with those two two pawn which is affordability um what would what is your your take on on that versus the private sector with allopathy so when we start talking about naturopathic medicine and also author functional medicine in there as well because naturopathic medicine and functional medicine are hand in hand functional medicine is like the conventional way of doing naturopathic medicine but when you go this route for one the a lot of the patient visits themselves oftentimes are not going to be covered by insurance and then beyond that often times a lot of the testing is not going to be covered by insurance unfortunately so if you are in a situation where you need heavy metal tests for food allergy testing you need in-depth hormone testing you want organic acid testing there are a lot of these functional and in-depth uh advanced labs that you can do that can really help to unwind and unpack these underlying issues that people have had for years these chronic unresolved issues that have been ignored or been unanswered by conventional medicine oftentimes those answers lie in some of these more expensive and more specialty testing and those are not going to be covered by insurance unfortunately and then we also have like the supplements and the products they’re the supplement industry is a humongous industry which is good and bad because there are all these fantastic products out there that can support health but there are also a lot of for lack of a better word shitty products that don’t do anything and just trick the consumer and the reality is if you’re going to just like your grocery store and you’re buying a supplement off the shelf odds are that it has additives in it they are not using the proper form of the vitamin mineral herb because there are different um forms of herbs there are different formations of the vitamins and minerals in there and then you have dosages right and so without working with a with a practitioner again whether it be functional medicine or naturopathic who actually understands how to properly dose and read through and identify quality supplements you’re going to probably be purchasing the wrong stuff which will be ineffective and then the correct stuff unfortunately is a little bit pricey because again it’s not supported or covered by most people’s insurance plans and why do you think insurance coverage or plans are you know comparatively to to the allopathic uh world i mean when we think about insurance or pharmaceuticals when we think about these different industries under the medical umbrella you’ve got to remember that these companies they’re for-profit so their ultimate purpose is to cut costs and to make a profit for the shareholders whether your moda whether it’s like providence these are companies whose purpose is to make money and so what they want to do is they want to achieve the minimal outcome at the lowest possible point the ultimate goal is to get you is to keep you alive and to give you the basic services that you’re paying for yeah that makes sense because it’s a business at the end of the day so it’s funny we talk about this i i was actually just yesterday testifying um in front of the oregon senate about this issue and about access to naturopathic care in oregon and all of that so wow um what were kind of the the first the reasons why you were brought to to testify and what is the positive outlook that you’re you’re expecting out of that testimony um i went to the senate yesterday to um i went to it it was virtual now because everything’s covered you zoomed in exactly from the same exact seat but um so in the state of oregon as i mentioned naturopathic doctors can work with insurance however insurance companies have been discriminating against naturopathic doctors for a long time because insurance companies are cheap and they are not the friend of the physician or the patient a lot of people think that physicians like insurance companies that know we hate them because they nickel and dime you and they do everything in their power to not pay for quality services and they do everything in the power to try to make the patients pay out of pocket for things and they’re just a pain in the butt for everybody and so insurance companies have been paying naturopathic doctors significantly less money for the same medical codes that they pay medical doctors for and so that technically is illegal but that hasn’t stopped them from doing it and so i was testifying with um to the senate yesterday to um put forward a bill that is going to force the insurance companies to reimburse naturopathic doctors at the same exact rate that they would reimburse in md or do because again we’re doing the same as x services we are building the same codes but they just arbitrarily decide to reimburse naturopathic doctors at a lower rate well yeah and when we think about access to care a lot of naturopathic doctors including myself are switching to a cash-based model so that we don’t have to deal with insurance companies and so the state of oregon wants to keep naturopathic medicine accessible to people then they they have to regulate these insurance companies otherwise we’re all just going to be cash based which unfortunately also prices out a lot of people who are local and really do need and deserve our services wow that’s really that’s relentless for the for the insurance companies yeah it’s it just kind of reinforces difficult access to preventive care or preventive health care i guess in that respect like what do you think are like three things that the current naturopathic industry what do they currently hold in where they can demonstrate or directly incentivize and support patient reimbursements so that insurance companies um feel encouraged or willing to to want to participate in doing that so three things is one we have to help people realize that prevention actually is cheaper so when you invest in preventative medicine you save money down the road you keep people from getting these invasive surgeries you keep people off of pharmaceuticals you keep people out of the medical pipeline which is extraordinarily expensive so when you start to invest in these naturopathic these natural principles you save money two is is helping to make these supplements and products more financially accessible and so showing the link between proper health outcomes and and targeted supplementation will help to get to bring insurance companies on board and this is already happening because you have pharmaceutical companies who are now creating fish oil vitamin d and creating these different like um nutrient and vitamin products yeah but the unfortunate reality is is because the way the system is set up is unless the pharmaceutical the pharmaceutical industry is creating these products they’re not covered by insurance so fish oil is is a great example of that fish oil has been shown to be health supportive for years and natural practitioners have been have been prescribing and recommending people take fish oil high dose fish oil which can be expensive fish oil is now a pharmaceutical product which can be covered by insurance if it’s prescribed and bottled by a pharmaceutical company you know so it’s it’s like a catch-22 there um i mean on the bright side if i were to say is that they are not requiring a general practitioner to prescribe this so if you were to prescribe it it would be reimbursed um yes but it depends on where you are so in most places it would require a gp and then the other unfortunate thing is most gps are not prescribing people fish oil and a lot of these supportive nutrients because that is not the way they were trained and that’s not a lot of treatment algorithms so rather than pulling for fish oil and vitamins and and lifestyle they’re going to go directly to the statin and the in the blood pressure medication unfortunately which probably has different side side effects and long-term impact on the body which cause other things right that and the reality is is that there will never be a pharmaceutical or or a product whether it be pharmaceutical or natural that can mimic what can be accomplished when you change the underlying causes of disease change people’s lifestyle change people’s diets and then support them from there because again supplements are not the change they support the change and support your body and in my experience like when i get people off of medications change their lifestyle and give them some supplements their numbers are far better than they were when they were managed and well managed on medication because again when you give the body what it needs and you do the right thing the body performs better than the pill could make it perform makes sense um we talked about prevention is cheaper get affordable supplements what’s next and then next is to help the conventional medical system understand the importance of more in-depth testing and so to get these general gps to start ordering more lab tests so i see this all the time in my practice where patients come and their their previous doctor did not order enough labs and people are undiagnosed or they’re under diagnosed and they’re missing key things so a great example of that is a simple measure of insulin and so when we when we test somebody for diabetes you’re testing their glucose you want to make sure that their glucose levels um if they’re fasting are under 100 and then you’re also going to test their a1c right and you want their a1c to be under 5.7 over 5.7 is going to be pre-diabetic and over 6.4 is going to be diabetic and that those are the two tests that like are conventionally run unfortunately most gps are only going to run glucose only and then some are going to run a1cs all the time but not surprisingly people don’t always run a1cs so every young person should have an a1c done on them at least at least once a year and then the next step from there be in my opinion yes sorry what’s an a1c i’m going to be that person who asks it all right let’s take a quick road trip down the diabetes path okay okay so your red blood cells live for about three months on average and and you have it you have sugar in your blood at baseline normally but when you have sugar in your blood the sugar is going to attach the red blood cells red blood cells live for about three months and then they die and they regenerate and so the a1c is looking at the amount of sugar attached to your blood and it is a measure of a three month period and so that’s your three month average and then the last measure is going to be insulin and what happens is when your body becomes insulin resistant what your body does in response is it starts to secrete a lot of insulin to get your doors to open so if you sent your friend a text message and they ignored it you’re going to send them more messages until they listen and so that’s what your body does with insulin when your body starts to ignore insulin signal it starts to send more and more text messages and so one of the ways that you can diagnose pre-diabetes is you measure insulin levels because insulin will be sky high and your body will secrete a lot of insulin before your a1c and your glucose levels start to increase so your body can spend years secreting high levels of insulin and making it look like you’re healthy when in actuality you’re metabolically unhealthy and you’re on the road to diabetes whereas conventional medicine isn’t going to catch it until you are actually at that point and so when i talk about like having more advanced testing and having a different paradigm for how we address testing we need to not only support preventative medicine but we need to do tests that are going to identify these health issues earlier so we can have earlier interventions right now i get what you mean by doing that test that way you actually catch it before you’re in a state where it’s already it’s going to take a lot more work for you to try to reverse your diabetes if it’s possible yeah it is possible to reverse your diabetes but again for any condition the earlier you catch it the easier it is that’s really good information for us to share with people because i don’t think people generally know about this so most doctors don’t like most doctors don’t run in fasting insulin and it’s and it makes no sense so like if there’s one test that i would recommend everybody make sure their doctors run on them is get a a1c and a fasting insulin great kind of to close off the conversation on your testimony at the senate how positive are you with regards to that it actually was it actually was really positive they there was an insurance lobbyist there we testified i testified with a few of my colleagues and then the insurance lobby came up and testified and um one of the senators just like really ripped into the lobbyist and like chastised them for being a little condescending in the way that they were talking wow um and then you know it was good to see the the the senators actually were pushing back against the insurance lobby and saying hey um you say that it’s going to be so much more expensive to this was one of one of my favorite things to hear but they were like okay you’re telling us that if you pay naturopathic doctors more money it’ll be so much more expensive however there’s a lot of research that shows that naturopathic care is actually cheaper and more affordable because they keep people off of off of pharmaceuticals and keep people out of the doctor’s office and are preventative and the lobbyists didn’t have a good response to that yeah yeah awesome yeah it was it was positive i’m hopeful i um i think that i think that things will move in the right direction the american medical system is is pretty jacked up just like our political system is so that is another conversation yeah yes i think you’re you’re doing a great job to i think if given with the right credibility and the right amount of research and and testified in in the right way you’re doing something great for not only the people who need it uh but also for your profession so um so good on you dr kelly thank you yeah i appreciate it yeah i appreciate it um is there anything that our listeners can do if they’re they’re listeners in america especially to to support you in this endeavor absolutely absolutely so you definitely reach out to your legislators to your hospitals to your doctors and and talk about naturopathic medicine and alternative medicine let people know that these services are wanted and speak to your gp and let them know that you are working with a doctor so a lot of people will will work with alternative medicine practitioners like secretly because they’re scared of what their gp will say but in reality what you want is to be open about that that way you can remove that stigma and let your gp know that not only are you doing these things but that your gp can also know what you’re doing when it is effective and cannot and rather than giving themselves a credit will be like oh okay so they’re doing these all the things and these other things are actually supportive so maybe i will recommend these things to to future patients yeah and and recognize that make them recognize that there’s a need and a want from from the patients um because some of the the arguments of a allopathic doctor would be that it’s not a need it’s not effective and so it’s having those evidence um that would help kind of a move forward and i guess lastly before we go but very importantly um how do our listeners find you so i can be found at on all social media platforms at dr khalid nd so d-r-k-h-a-l-e-e-d-n-d that’s my tag um i have the best way to reach me right now is going to be through my diabetes class so i’ve created a diabetes master class where i’m teaching people how to reverse and manage their diabetes naturally and so that is going to be the thediabetesmasterclass.com so th e diabetesmasterclass.com and that’s a three day live event that i run every three months and in that event i teach people how to reverse their diabetes naturally get off their medications and get on the path to a healthier life awesome thank you so much for your time my pleasure thank you if you enjoyed this episode go ahead and select that follow or subscribe button for now stay safe and we’ll see you next week