AskMed

This is a new fee-based service. See below for the scale of charges and contact information

The Alternative Medicine Foundation continually receives inquiries of all sorts about medical information or advice. Some of these come from people with chronic illnesses, complicated situations involving many types of therapy and medicines. Often there are confusions beween conventional and alternative treatments and worldviews. Something beyond information is frequently needed to help with understanding what is important, what it means, and how it all fits together.

For this reason, the AskMed service has been developed with Dr. Ladd Bauer. Dr. Bauer is a Board Certified MD (Family Medicine) with long experience of both conventional and alternative methods and their integration. For several years he has been helping people sort out complicated problems (or more simple ones) via email, fax, and telephone. The necessary time is taken to more deeply interpret medical stories and translate them into a coherent form which can offer a way out of confusion.

This is not a clinical service. Since no examination can be performed at a distance, Dr. Bauer´s work is not meant to take the place of your own practioners' diagnoses and treatments. It is meant to help go beyond the level of information to that of integrative understanding.

Inquiries taken by the service fall into two general categories, for which there is a basic initial payment of $25. This work is not supported by grants, and so we must ask for help in return from those who seek help from us. Every effort is made to keep the cost low for the level of service. The basic categories are shown below:

1) Simple questions: Straightforward single questions can often be well answered by email without requiring more than 15 or 20 minutes. There is no additional fee for this service - it is covered by the initial $25 payment. This category may also be used for initial assessment of a more complex case, to provide a general sense of what might be possible for further consultation.

2) Consultations: When an inquiry involves complex histories and/or many treatments, more thorough review, research, and "reframing" may be necessary, with longer written responses. The phone may also be used at times to establish a more personal connection and quickly retrieve specifics, if seen as appropriate by both parties. Phone costs may be requested for long calls. Usually up to two hours will be needed, for a charge of $240. If additional time is necessary, it will be billed at $120 per hour, prorated by the quarter hour. The initial $25 donation is deducted from the final fee.

Click here for further guidance on how to frame your question.

To submit your questions, make a $25 donation and send an email to the AskMed Service. Letters may also be mailed to Dr. Bauer at the address below, if you do not have email service.

You may pay by check (made out to AMFI, and sent to Dr. Bauer, PO Box 877, Marshall, CA 94940), or online by credit card. Go to Contribute and click on Donate Now to access a secure system run by Contribute.com. All payments are tax deductable as donations to the Alternative Medicine Foundation, Inc. Please indicate in your email to Dr. Bauer that you have paid the initial $25 donation and by what method.

See also:

• Bio
• How I came to be here
• Visits to Other Worlds
• Guidance for users