Functional Medicine is Getting a Bad Name

I wanted to go over something that’s very close to my heart… and that’s functional medicine getting a bad name. 

The #1 reason it’s getting a bad name is because it’s not regulated (anyone can call themselves a functional medicine practitioner). That label can be plastered on anywhere. Unfortunately, a lot of the public will go to someone when they have that name, rather than looking at their history, credentials, and what they’ve done. People assume that if you’re advertising functional medicine then you know what you’re doing. 

Unfortunately, what is happening is a lot of people don’t have the experience or knowledge. What tends to happen is these practitioners use supplements a lot. Somebody will come in for the usual consultation and they’ll get a list of supplements to take with no follow-up, no accountability, no community, and no support. 

It’s really sad because proper, pure functional medicine doesn’t rely on supplementation as a foundation. There’s so much more to functional medicine than just that. Functional medicine is about getting to the root cause of the problem. Supplements should only be there to fill in gaps and help along the way. They should be a very minimal part of the overall plan. 

So, too many supplements, inexperience, lack of knowledge, and being expensive are only part of the reason functional medicine is getting a bad name. These practitioners are going back to the conventional solution of “here’s a problem, here’s a supplement” rather than thinking outside the box and understanding the biological systems and connections of lifestyle and genetics.

Patients don’t mind paying good money if they’re getting great support, accountability, education, and seeing and feeling results. But, when patients are having consultations and then left for months until the next consultation, that’s not going to benefit anyone. The support, accountability, community, education, and connection have to be there for the patient in order for it to work.

That’s why we’re so passionate here at Functional Medicine Fast Track. We can fast track practitioners to that situation and we have the knowledge to fill all these gaps, so that you can support your patients and get the outcomes. We make it as affordable as possible to get the most support possible, and minimize the amount of supplements they need. We make sure you’re using supplements only in the right situations. These are some of the major things we focus on at Functional Medicine Fast Track. We take a practitioner and transition them into functional medicine and make them competent as quickly as possible. 

So many practitioners love the idea of functional medicine but never get it right. We’re here to help you get it right. We want to make sure you get it right, in a short space of time, and create sustainability.