Functional Medicine in Orlando: What It Costs, What It Can Do, and How to Choose
Written and medically reviewed by Dr. Karolina Skrzypek, MD
Functional Medicine
Read Time: 10 min read
Functional medicine attracts more skepticism than most fields, and some of it is earned. This page answers the questions people actually ask before booking: whether the doctor is a real doctor, what it costs, what insurance covers, where the criticism is fair, and how to tell a rigorous practice from a supplement counter.
In short. Functional medicine is an approach rather than a licensed specialty, so the credential that matters is the clinician's underlying license.
A physician practicing functional medicine is a physician. A coach using the same label is not.
The field's weakness is that anyone can use the term, and the quality range is enormous.
Consultations are usually out of pocket. NaturaMed does not accept insurance. Some services may qualify for health spending accounts such as an HSA or FSA.
The honest test of a practice is whether it measures and retests, and whether it will tell you when something sits outside its scope.
What a functional medicine doctor actually does
The working difference is time and breadth rather than philosophy. A conventional visit is built to identify disease and treat it, in ten to fifteen minutes. That is efficient and it works well for the thing it was designed for.
Functional medicine starts from a second question. Once disease has been ruled out, what is driving the symptoms that remain? In practice that means a longer first appointment, a history that goes back further than the current complaint, wider laboratory testing, and a plan that gets adjusted against repeat results rather than delivered once.
It is not a licensed specialty. There is no functional medicine board in the way there is for cardiology, and that is the single most important thing to understand before choosing a practice. What exists is training, most commonly through the Institute for Functional Medicine, taken on top of an existing clinical license. So the question is never whether something is functional medicine. It is what the person in front of you is licensed to do.
A physician who practices this way can serve as your primary doctor, prescribe, order imaging, and refer. A health coach using the same label cannot. Both may describe themselves as functional medicine practitioners.
Who this is for
Women in Orlando and Central Florida with symptoms that have persisted through a normal workup, or who have a diagnosis and want the contributing factors examined rather than managed indefinitely. It suits people who want to understand mechanism and are prepared for a process that takes months.
It is a poor fit if you want a single answer in one visit, if paying without insurance is not an option, or if what you actually need is an urgent diagnosis. Acute or rapidly worsening symptoms belong in conventional care first.
What to look for when choosing a practice
A named clinical license
Find out whether the person you will see is an MD, DO, NP, ND, or a coach, and what that permits in Florida. This is public information and any practice should state it plainly.
A reason for every test
Good practice orders what your history justifies. A fixed panel sold to everyone who walks in is a product, not an assessment.
A retest built into the plan
If nothing is scheduled to be measured again, there is no way to know whether the plan worked. This single question separates most rigorous practices from the rest.
Clear scope, honestly stated
A practice worth using will tell you what it does not handle and refer accordingly. Imaging, surgery, oncology, psychiatric care and emergencies belong elsewhere.
Costs given before anything is ordered
Testing and supplements are where unexpected charges appear. You should have the numbers in writing first.
Licensure where you live
Telemedicine requires the clinician to hold a license in your state. Confirm it before booking.
At NaturaMed the physician is Dr. Karolina Skrzypek, MD, seeing patients in Maitland and by telemedicine where licensed. Our Feel Better Faster program runs a 75-minute evaluation, testing selected against your history, four physician follow-ups and six sessions with a nutrition and health coach over six months.
Where each type of care fits
Primary care
Built to answer. Whether disease is present, managing chronic conditions, prescribing, screening and referral, usually with insurance coverage.
What it typically won't cover. Extended time on symptoms without a clear diagnosis, or testing beyond standard panels.
When it's the right step. First, and for anything acute.
Medical specialist
Built to answer. A defined problem within one system, at real depth.
What it typically won't cover. Patterns spanning several systems, and symptoms that fall inside reference ranges.
When it's the right step. When a specific diagnosis is suspected or confirmed.
Functional medicine practice, physician-led
Built to answer. What is driving symptoms when the standard workup was unrevealing, with wider testing read as one picture and a plan adjusted against repeat results. At NaturaMed this is physician-led in Maitland, serving Orlando and Central Florida. See how we work.
What it typically won't cover. Imaging, surgery, emergencies and psychiatric care. We refer for those. NaturaMed does not accept insurance. Some services may qualify for health spending accounts such as an HSA or FSA.
When it's the right step. Once disease has been excluded and symptoms continue.
Direct primary care or concierge medicine
Built to answer. Access and time, with longer visits and direct contact, usually on a membership fee.
What it typically won't cover. The wider testing, unless the clinician also works this way.
When it's the right step. When the main problem is that your doctor has no time.
Direct-to-consumer testing platform
Built to answer. Convenience, and some panels are genuinely broad.
What it typically won't cover. Interpretation. Nobody is accountable for what happens next.
When it's the right step. When you want specific markers and have somewhere to take the results.
Wellness or supplement-led clinic
Built to answer. A protocol you can start immediately.
What it typically won't cover. A clinical license behind the advice, in some cases, and often no testing or retest.
When it's the right step. Rarely, for unexplained symptoms.
Where functional medicine commonly falls short
The label is unregulated. Anyone can use it regardless of training, which is the fair core of the criticism.
Testing sold as diagnosis. Several popular panels are marketed well beyond what they can support. Food sensitivity IgG testing and intestinal permeability testing are the clearest examples.
Supplement revenue shaping recommendations. Where a practice profits from what it prescribes, ask how that is managed.
Protocols applied uniformly. A fixed program delivered to everyone is the opposite of what the approach claims to be.
Findings that outrun the evidence. Adrenal fatigue is not a recognized diagnosis, and describing it as one is a reasonable reason to walk away.
What it costs, and what insurance covers
NaturaMed does not accept insurance. Most functional medicine practices in Florida operate outside insurance networks, because the appointment lengths and testing the approach depends on are not reimbursed at rates that sustain them. Expect to pay directly for clinical time.
Some laboratory work is billable. Some services may qualify for health spending accounts such as an HSA or FSA. Specialty panels, including dried urine hormone testing and comprehensive stool analysis, generally are not.
HSA and FSA funds usually apply. This is how many patients cover it, and it is worth confirming with your plan administrator.
Supplements are a separate line. Ask whether they are included, and whether the practice profits from them.
The number to ask for is the total. Clinical time, testing, and supplements together, before anything is ordered. A practice that will not give you that figure has told you something.
What the evidence supports, and what it doesn't
Well established. Extended appointment time improves diagnostic accuracy for complex presentations. Several markers omitted from standard panels have clear clinical value, including ferritin, free T3, thyroid antibodies and fasting insulin. Nutrition, sleep, activity and stress measurably affect chronic disease, and shared decision-making improves adherence.
Fairly criticized. Functional medicine as a whole has a thinner outcomes literature than established specialties, and much of what exists is observational rather than randomized. Some tests in common use are not validated for the decisions they are used to make. Some practitioners make claims their training does not support, and the unregulated label makes that hard for patients to detect. These are real criticisms and they are not answered by pointing at the practices that do it well.
What that means in practice. Judge the clinician rather than the category. Their license, their reasoning for each test, and whether they retest will tell you more than the label ever will.
