3/19 Update

Dear Hawthorn Community,

Throughout the past week we have been working around the clock to continue to provide care for you and your families. For the week of March 23-27th, will be moving all of our standard visits to TELEMEDICINE. If you have an appointment scheduled, you will have already received a message about this.

While we are excited to be able to provide care for you directly in your home, we are heartbroken because we love what we do here everyday. As you know, a great deal of what we do is about providing hands-on physical medicine, relief of symptoms, pain management, misalignment corrections, acupuncture, massage, and cupping. Additionally we are honored to have created an environment and hold physical space for you to heal, calm your mind, build your qi, nourish, meditate, share your story, and support whatever your healing process looks like.

The uncertain timeline regarding how long changes will be in place can trigger fear for us as healers, employers, and dynamic human beings just as it can for yourselves. We all must accept the uncertainty and be okay with non-absolutes about when we will be fully back into the swing of things again. We all have to keep adapting and keep dancing to the changing beat-- instead of fearing or fighting it and adding unnecessary layers of stress to an already intense situation. So we are riding the waves with you, and doing our absolute best to support you along this sudden change of daily living.

We urge you to strive for normalcy and use our digital resources to stay connected to our doctors and the community we have built at this time. Keep your routines. If you have a yoga studio, gym, church, support group, etc., utilize their online options. Adapt your plans with friends and family to phone or video chats instead of cancelling. We agree with the idea of physical distancing, not social disconnect. Connection and relationships are a beautiful and irreplaceable layer of the human experience.

We stand with our hippocratic oath to serve the needs of our patients and vow to continue to do so. We are weighing options for how to still offer limited in office visits and will announce more details as things go. If you have a specific question about this or an extreme case of pain management etc, please call our office or message the doctors to assess if, how, and when we can still see you in the office

TELEMEDICINE

If you have an acute illness please take the following steps:

First, remember to breathe and stay calm.
Follow all CDC and State of Connecticut guidelines regarding suspected COVID-19. Call your primary care doctor and visit the CDC website for more information. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/index.html
Also send a message to your providing doctor through our Charm Patient Portal or call the office and leave a message. We will get in touch with you as soon as possible (always in less than 24 hours) to help you navigate the best steps.

Insurance is now covering Telemedicine:

After several days of mandated policies being released and tireless work by our team, we have jumped through the hoops needed to be able to bill all contracted insurers for your telemedicine visit just like we do for in-office visits. While we love to see your smiling faces in our office, telemedicine actually fits a lot of what we do very well.

We are continually updating our policies to reflect the CMS rules and regulations regarding financial responsibility of these visits. Some insurers are instructing to bill as a regular office visit; some are waiving copays, deductible charges, and coinsurance fees. Soon it will likely be mandated and uniform coverage across all insurers. As the policies change, we will continue to adapt and pass that information along to you at the time of your visit, with pertinent updates on our social media.

What we can do during our Telemedicine visits

In general, we can do a lot of what we do in person during your visit. We can absolutely do follow up, lifestyle counseling, motivational interviewing, mental health checks, and case management visits. We can also do more extensive wellness and preventive visits. We can make a structured plan to spend the time to go into nutrition and diet details that might get missed during our very full visits or have more convenient, fast nutrition based check ins to ask your questions as they arise and maintain accountability.

Lab review is perfect for telemedicine; we can pull the labs right up on the screen and go through it point by point. We have alternative lab options for hormones, food sensitivities, nutritional assessment, and more that can be shipped to you and mailed directly to the company without you crowding testing centers or risking exposure. For those that need blood draws, we have mobile phlembolists options too.

Telemedicine Rescheduling for Acupuncture Visits

In place of your acupuncture visits, Dr. Chimileski can develop an acupressure plan based on your case and symptoms and tongue diagnosis. She will teach you how to locate the point and stimulate it on yourself at home. Of course this is different and limited but it is still empowering you at a time when you may feel helpless. Acupressure has vast historical use and documented benefits similar to acupuncture. This is a great option for chronic issues, so you can repeatedly do the same points at home or when your ailment flares up. We can also schedule them as needed for new concerns, goals or symptoms that come up-- i.e. Allergies one week, knee pain another week, focusing on fertility, different phases of the cycle and/or immune support. Acupressure can be one of your tools for anxiety management and to nourish your body as all of our regular schedules and rhythms are thrown off by all these changes.

Moxa sticks are also available for purchase prior to your consultation to use to stimulate the points. Dr. C. will educate you on the safe ways to use it and which points and method to use based on your condition. These are large incense-like sticks of herbs that are burned near particular acupuncture points to stimulate and tonify the system. More specifics will be given to those who are interested. Visit our website’s traditional chinese medicine page here for more information on MOXABUSTION. https://hawthornholistichealth.com/acupuncture-tcm

She will also of course be generally checking in on your case and go over supplement questions, treatment plan changes, nutritional support, lab review, counseling, mental health checks, and anxiety management-- as she does at your office visits regularly.

Physical Medicine Visits via TeleMedicine:

Both Drs. Chimileski and Robinson will be able to guide you through self stretches and trigger point release for muscle spasms and body pains-- in addition to other therapies that may be beneficial.

Supplement Orders and Apothecary Item Refills

Our docs are currently still in the office to fill orders. We have shipping options as well as pay in advance to pick up quickly outside the door. If any restrictions around this develop, we will adapt. Fullscripts is a great option for stocking up on supplements for delivery of high quality supplements directly to your door. Remember, while Amazon is an option, too, it is well documented and known that many of the supplements sold through Amazon are knock-offs and poorly regulated.

Focus on WELLNESS, Nutritional consults, and healthy lifestyle empowerment

We understand that this may feel like a time to jump into culture and push out or cancel your wellness visits. You may be afraid, or thinking that wellness seems trivial in the face of a pandemic like this. But the reality is this is a time where it is even MORE important to focus on your HEALTH [not just not getting sick]. You will have to work even harder to implement healthy living strategies to support your vitality, nourish deficiencies and take action steps to be well and empowered, instead of worrying with nothing to do about it. We are being inundated with fearful news reports, and it is natural and appropriate to be afraid. Use the fear as motivation to take care of yourself, instead of being paralyzed by it. Use this time well. In addition to self exploration, art, reading, moving, reflect on what your health goals are and how you can achieve them. How do you define health? Work with our doctors to do that alternative lab you have been putting off because you just didn’t have the time.

Moving forward…

We do not want to fill your inbox with excessive emails about all this or oversaturate you with information you are not looking for, but are striving to keep supporting you. For this reason, major email blasts about policy changes that affect how we are seeing patients and offering care will be sent out to everyone on our mailing list.

Patients who are interested in continuing to get online information and sharing resources at this time, please follow us; look out and participate online for more info, community support, and tools on our social media. Join our separate Hawthorn Holistic Huddle mailing list for more frequent information regarding COVID19 specific updates, positivity, at home mental health tools, nutritional community challenges, at home health projects (let’s start fermenting!) and some good old fashioned generalized holistic health information. The link will be posted on the landing page of our website as well. https://mailchi.mp/4d88242bc224/hawthornholistichuddle

Please fill out the patient survey that will be posted on social media and our website soon- to help us evaluate how we can best strive to meet your health needs. You can also submit specific questions for our docs to filter through and attempt to answer via a Frequently Asked Questions video we will share on our social media next week.

POSTPONED EVENTSThe absence of these events will be addressed in our patient survey, please complete it if you are interested in online community challenges, cleanses and classers. At this time we will be postponing and rescheduling:

→ Spring Cleanse until late April or early May.

→ Community Acupuncture will be cancelled until further notice.

→ New Moon Yoga Nidra Shared Space Acupuncture will be rescheduled.

It is necessary to end on the note that food is medicine. Please- CLEAN UP YOUR DIET AND COOK REAL FOOD. There are articles circulating about “how to survive if you do not know how to cook.” While this is coming from a kind place, it is honestly infuriating. This should be a wake up call to get in the kitchen and LEARN how to cook for yourself and what best fuels your body. Fight the urge to develop new crutches to keep eating the same junk. The time is NOW, and it is all you have. You are a wonderfully orchestrated powerful intelligent capable being. You can learn to cook if “you don’t know how,” and you can lean into it harder if you already have experience and/or interest. Laziness or convenient ignorance is not the same as inability. Nobody is a great chef right away; you learn through trial and error, accepting imperfection, practice, and faking it until you make it. There is a plethora of online resources, family members, or friends who would love to giggle as they walk you through a favorite recipe or good old fashioned cookbooks you can access. We will be sharing resources on our social media pages for this, but come on, if you know how to “Netflix and chill,” you can “Netflix and cook.”

Mental health and nutrition is the ultimate foundation of your wellness and literal nourishment. In times of health crisis, eating well prepared, nutrient dense food is undoubtedly going to influence your vitality and ability to fight off infections of any kind. It is also going to make chronic health concerns potentially more manageable and less dependent on an overburdened, broken healthcare system. That just makes sense, even though it is not common sense in our culture. Our society far too often takes the convenient, easy option, and sacrifices their health because they can take a pill everyday to control symptoms and provide the illusion of feeling healthy-- the classic analogy of turning off the smoke alarm instead of putting out the fire. Many medications are necessary, and you should never stop or change a medication without the advice of the authorized prescribing doctor. But through lifestyle changes, you can work with them (and us) to safely reduce your dependency on the medical system. Discipline, self care, health education, and understanding how the body works, and why we need to implement nutritional changes is arguably the most powerful long term health tool. Start slow, make gradual changes and try new things.

Cooking a variety of meals and getting excited about different flavor profiles literally adds spice to your life! It excites your brain and engages different receptors all through the body, increasing circulation, enhancing digestion, and so much more. It evokes memories, temperature changes, and emotions- think about how different you feel after eating a spicy meal, sipping a cooling cucumber mint juice or a baked good with warming cinnamon and ginger! Of course, it is also a beautiful and fun way to connect to loved ones- within your home or digitally- everyone can attempt the same recipe and see how it pans out (not apologizing for the pun). It can add excitement and elicit new feelings and make new memories; it is an act of love to cook a meal for someone. You can even get your travel fix through cooking and tasting the flavors and foods of other cultures.

Finally, because we all need to keep hearing it- We will get through this. Life will continue. We will gather, hug, and celebrate soon. We will adapt. We wish you well and are here when you need it. Please reach out to the doctors through phone or patient portal messages if you have specific concerns, questions or just want to say hello.

We miss you too.