Valley Functional Wellness was born with the intent to address the gaps that currently exist in traditional primary care and to offer an alternative.  Though functional medicine is an often loosely invoked term, in this office it reflects a patient-centered approach with individualized care. Here, the priority lies in finding and addressing the root cause of a condition, instead of simply listening to symptoms and offering a diagnosis and protocol. Guidance on nutrition, healthy lifestyle, disease prevention, and overall wellness is the backbone of the care offered here.   After working in the traditional healthcare system, it became increasingly frustrating to exist in a transactional relationship, where there was barely enough time to glance at a chart, quickly cross reference algorithms or prescription guidelines and send patients out the door to pay their co-pay and ping their insurance to satisfy the corporate bottom line.

It's not that the medical community wishes for it to be this way, it’s simply the standard disease management model under which we are all taught to practice.

The functional care model at Valley Functional Wellness moves away from disease management and focuses more on identifying and addressing the cause of illness and cultivating wellness through prevention and health maintenance. This model ensures that there is time for patients to be able to relay their stories and allows the provider the opportunity to listen, ask questions, and assess individual contributing factors. Genetic, social, emotional, nutritional, and environmental factors are all in play. They can all be a part of the origin of health issues, and they ALL matter.