Care Plan Consultation

Price: $300

This consultation is designed to provide you with a detailed 3-6 month treatment plan for your patient with diagnosed or suspected ME/CFS. Patient attendance at the virtual consultation is welcomed but is left to your discretion.

Includes:

• Pre-consultation packet guiding you to collect the relevant information for the consultation. It includes things like history, labs and physical exam findings.

• Access to a direct line to Dr. Brown in case you have any questions about the contents of the pre-consultation packet

• One 60-minute long virtual visit on Google Meet

• Written personalized recommendations + a curated list of other pre-written resources

• For $50 each, you can schedule 30-minute long follow up virtual consultations for troubleshooting, clarifications and further recommendations

Frequently asked questions

How do consultations work?

When you click the button to schedule a consult, you will be redirected to a form which will collect some basic information about you and your clinic. An automatic email will be sent once you submit this form with instructions for scheduling.

You will be provided with a pre-consultation form outlining the most pertinent information to gather prior to the consultation to get the most out of your time with Dr. Brown. We also offer a brief welcome call to answer your questions, collect payment information, and provide Dr. Brown's direct contact information in case you have questions about the contents of the pre-consultation form.

The consultation is scheduled via Google Calendar and held over Google Meet (HIPAA compliant). The patient is welcome to join but this is left up to your discretion.

A note with personalized recommendations will be provided within 1 week of the consultation.

How does billing work?

Peer to peer services are invoiced to the consulting clinician at the time of the appointment. Bank account or card information is collected and added to our EHR (SigmaMD). Payment is due at the time of service. Credit cards may incur an additional processing fee.

What is Dr. Brown's experience with ME/CFS?

Dr. Brown developed ME/CFS in the fall of 2014 during her first semester of medical school at Indiana University. Her entire medical training was experienced through the lens of someone interested in the pathophysiology and treatment of this condition. She graduated from family medicine residency in June 2023 and immediately opened her own micro-Direct Primary Care practice.

In March 2024 she opened a specialty ME/CFS clinic and spent two years focusing on diagnosing and treating patients with ME/CFS. She sought out mentors and tested various theories about what ME/CFS was and how to treat it. She pulled from resources such as the Long COVID iECHO group and a 3 day workshop hosted by Dr. Raymond Perrin to learn his lymphatic drainage massage technique. She also met regularly with Dr. Peter Rowe, head of the John's Hopkins pediatric ME/CFS clinic and Wendy Wagner, a physical therapist specializing in upper cervical instability and co-author of the international consensus criteria on upper cervical instability in the setting of generalized joint hypermobility.

She gained experience treating cases of ME/CFS ranging from mild all the way down to very severe patients requiring feeding tubes and regular IV hydration. She also treated patients across the socioeconomic spectrum, providing many with pro-bono care. She successfully supported disability cases for many of her patients and improved the quality of life for most. A very few have achieved partial or complete remission under her care.

What is Dr. Brown's experience with comorbid conditions?

ME/CFS is commonly comorbid with other underserved conditions including Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS), Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), atypical Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) and cervical structural issues such as cervical stenosis and Upper Cervical Instability (UCI). Being able to effectively treat ME/CFS means knowing how to identify and address these underlying treatable conditions.

What sorts of treatment recommendations does Dr. Brown provide?

ME/CFS is a complex chronic condition with no universal cure. The goal of treatment is to increase quality of life as much as possible while avoiding medical and financial harm. She focuses on evidence-based treatments first, safe and cheap experimental treatments next, and then expands to more expensive experimental treatments third. She generally avoids high-risk and expensive treatments unless the benefits clearly outweigh the risks. She generally avoids expensive functional medicine-style testing and she has no functional medicine training.

Dr. Brown pulls from a full range of treatment modalities including prescription medications, over-the-counter medications, supplements, vitamins, manual therapies (such as lymphatic drainage massage), behavioral approaches (such as pacing), mind-body approaches (such as stress reduction and meditation), procedures (such as stellate ganglion blocks) and surgeries (such as cervical fusion). She can also help you support your patient in their applications for social support such as long term disability.

Treating ME/CFS is an exercise in getting comfortable with uncertainty. Due to decades of systemic neglect by the scientific and medical communities, we don't have strong evidence for many ME/CFS treatments, but that doesn't mean nothing can be done. There are a huge range of safe and experimental treatments to consider for patients with ME/CFS of any severity and many things we can do to improve their quality of life.