Frequently Asked Questions

Direct Primary Care is a national model of medicine built for people who want something better than the rushed, insurance-dictated version of healthcare we’ve all gotten used to. Clinics across the country use DPC to step outside the red tape so they can offer care that feels personal again — longer visits, real relationships, clear communication, and no surprise bills.

Here, DPC means you have a provider who knows your story, your symptoms, your seasons, and your stressors. Visits last as long as they need to. Messages don’t disappear into the void. Your care is rooted in rhythm, not pressure.

It’s medicine the way it used to feel, before productivity quotas and 7-minute appointments came along.

Functional medicine studies the interconnected systems of the body — digestion, hormones, immune balance, detox pathways, stress response, and metabolism — and how they influence each other moment to moment.

It uses advanced labs when needed, but also listens to patterns: energy swings, cravings, sleep cycles, menstrual changes, stress triggers, and environmental exposures.

Think of it as listening to the ecosystem of your body, not just one organ at a time.

At White Oak, I use functional medicine to understand the physiology beneath your symptoms — not to overwhelm you with testing, but to identify the levers that actually help your system rebalance.

Functional psychiatry sits at the crossing of mental health and physical health. It’s psychiatry that asks:

Why is your anxiety occurring?
What is your depression connected to?
How is your nervous system responding to your environment?
What’s happening hormonally, nutritionally, and rhythmically?

It’s for people who know their symptoms are real — and also know medication alone hasn’t solved the whole picture.

At White Oak, functional psychiatry guides how I evaluate mood, anxiety, attention, trauma physiology, and nervous system overwhelm — with a lens that includes hormones, minerals, gut health, stress patterns, and the pace of your life.

Holistic psychiatry asks a different question:
What is your whole body trying to say through your symptoms?

Instead of looking only “from the neck up,” we explore how the nervous system, hormones, trauma physiology, gut health, inflammation, sleep, relationships, and daily rhythms shape mental health.

This is slow, relational work. It’s not about symptom suppression — it’s about understanding patterns, restoring connection, and helping your system find safety again.

At White Oak, this is the heart of my work — bringing the physical, emotional, spiritual, relational, and energetic layers of your story into one coherent picture.

These terms often overlap. A simple way to understand them:

Integrative care blends conventional and holistic approaches.
Functional care looks for root causes and system patterns, usually through (sometimes extensive and costly) testing.
Alternative care uses treatments outside mainstream medicine.
Holistic care treats the whole person — physical, emotional, energetic.

My work is integrative in scope, functional in method, and holistic in heart — grounded in evidence, shaped by intuition, and always tailored to your rhythm.

Because it isn’t built on speed or symptom checklists.
Standard primary care and psychiatry run on short visits, rushed decisions, and insurance-driven algorithms. This work runs on slowness, curiosity, and relationship.

I practice primary care, functional medicine, and holistic/functional psychiatry as one integrated system — because your body and mind are one integrated system. We treat your body as an interconnected whole: not isolated organs, not isolated symptoms, and definitely not isolated from your story.

Here, you are not a diagnosis. You’re a whole human being whose story matters

Both include whole-person care. The difference is simply the starting place:

If you’re primarily wanting support with your mental health, trauma patterns, tapering, or psychiatric medications — you’ll likely start in the Multiflora Rose Pathway.

If you’re looking for whole-body root-cause medicine (gut, hormones, inflammation, fatigue, chronic symptoms, autoimmune patterns), you’ll likely start in the Functional Medicine Memberships (Mugwort/Yarrow/Motherwort).

Either way, both pathways receive integrated physical + mental health care, because the mind and body always move as one.

A Nurse Practitioner holds a masters or doctorate degree and is an advanced practice clinician trained to diagnose, prescribe, treat, and manage medical conditions.

Some NPs — like me — hold an additional board certification in Psychiatric-Mental Health, which allows for diagnosing and treating psychiatric conditions, prescribing psychiatric medications, and providing integrative mental health care.

My background includes family medicine, cardiology, and psychiatric mental health. I’m licensed to diagnose and prescribe, order labs and imaging, manage chronic conditions, and guide both physical and mental health care.

In plain language: you’re getting a medically trained clinician who also understands the deeper currents — the stress patterns, trauma histories, lifestyle factors, and environmental influences that shape your health.

Being dual-licensed means I’m trained — and legally credentialed — in both physical medicine and mental health.

In practice, that means:

• I assess the whole body, not just one system
• I diagnose and treat medical conditions (as an FNP)
• I diagnose and treat psychiatric conditions (as a PMHNP)
• I prescribe medical and psychiatric medications when appropriate
• I notice when emotional symptoms have physical roots
• I notice when physical symptoms have emotional roots

Most clinicians are trained in one lane or the other — primary care or psychiatry.

My training spans both, which allows me to work at the intersection where so many symptoms truly live:

• anxiety influenced by blood sugar
• depression influenced by hormones
• fatigue influenced by trauma
• gut issues influenced by nervous system dysregulation
• insomnia influenced by adrenal physiology
• panic influenced by environmental stressors

Dual certification lets me see the fuller pattern — and support you from both angles at once, without forcing you to juggle multiple providers or explain the same story twice.

Yes — always.

The mind and body move as one unit.
Anxiety can come from blood sugar.
Depression can come from inflammation or hormones.
Fatigue can come from trauma physiology.
Gut symptoms can come from chronic stress.

You don’t have to choose between “mental health care” and “physical health care” here — they’re part of a single conversation.

Yes. I am licensed to prescribe medications (as well as labs and other treatments) in North Carolina, Arizona, and Colorado (with a few Medicaid-related limitations in Colorado).

For people working with an out-of-state taper coach, I can often provide the prescribing support they need — but prescribing across state lines requires an in-person visit with me at least once every three months to stay compliant with state and federal regulations.

To make that easier, I’ve created a WNC Foothills Visit Guide for those traveling in for quarterly appointments. 

I prescribe medications thoughtfully, conservatively, and collaboratively, always with your long-term nervous system health in mind.

Memberships at White Oak Medicine are private pay, which protects the length of visits, the depth of care, and your privacy.
Insurance may still cover outside labs, imaging, and medications depending on your plan.

For mental health services only, I currently accept insurance through Headway, which manages the billing and verification process on their end. You can check your benefits or see whether I’m in-network here:

Verify Your Insurance Through Headway

Because my work integrates psychotherapy with functional psychiatry, I can only work with people who live in — or receive care while physically located in — North Carolina, Arizona, or Colorado, the states where I am licensed.

If you live out of state but want to work together for prescribing support or therapy, this may be possible if you are able to travel to North Carolina for the required in-person visits every three months. Many people do this, and I’ve created a guide to make planning easier:

WNC Foothills Guide

Because they aren’t.

Standard psychiatry moves fast — fifteen minutes (if you’re lucky, I’ve heard of sessions as short as 8 minutes), a checklist, a med adjustment, and you’re out the door. That model was built for systems, not for humans.

This work is different.
It moves at the pace of real healing — slow enough to hear your story, steady enough to follow the threads beneath your symptoms, relational enough to help your nervous system settle instead of brace.

We look at your whole landscape: your hormones, sleep, stress physiology, trauma history, gut health, patterns of protection, patterns of collapse, daily rhythm, and the way your body speaks through symptoms.

You’re not reduced to a diagnosis here.
You’re met as a person — with curiosity, respect, and a wide-open seat at the table of your own healing.

Safe tapering is the slow, methodical reduction of psychiatric medications in a way that respects the nervous system’s timing, not the calendar’s.

It requires:
long appointments
close monitoring
nervous system support
understanding withdrawal symptoms
and a calm, anchored relationship with someone who won’t rush you

Tapering isn’t about being “anti-medication.”
It’s about being pro-you — and giving your brain time to recalibrate with care.

Some people don’t need therapy or functional medicine — they simply need someone who understands tapering, can prescribe safely, and won’t force them into medication changes dictated by insurance timelines.

For people who are emotionally stable, already working with a therapist or taper coach, or simply needing low-touch psychiatric oversight, I offer a light-support prescribing pathway that provides safe, respectful medication management without requiring ongoing therapy.

You can find more info on the Dandelion Path here:

The Dandelion Path at White Oak Medicine

My prescribing philosophy is different from standard psychiatry.

Most psychiatry operates on a “maintenance model,” where medications are renewed every three months with brief check-ins. That’s not the kind of care I offer.

I work from a deprescribing lens — meaning I prescribe thoughtfully, conservatively, and with the long-term health of your nervous system in mind.
If medications are needed, we use the lowest effective dose, with ongoing support for the systems that influence mental health: hormones, nutrition, sleep, trauma physiology, stress resilience, and life rhythm.

If someone is certain a medication is a permanent, lifelong solution — or is looking for ongoing refills without deeper work — I’m not the best fit.

Tapering is a marathon, not a sprint, and many people spend months or years getting stable enough to even consider reducing a medication. I’ll never rush that process — but I also won’t maintain medications indefinitely without a clear purpose and a plan.

If your goal includes healing, clarity, or eventually reducing your medication load, we’ll be a very strong fit.

That’s completely fine.
Your healing doesn’t have to fit into one model.

If you already have a therapist or taper coach you trust, I simply join the team — prescribing when needed, coordinating care with your therapist or coach (with your permission), and making sure your taper stays slow, safe, and nervous-system aware.

If you’re not currently in therapy, that’s also okay.
Some people are emotionally stable, well-supported, and don’t need weekly sessions. Others are in a season where therapy isn’t the right fit. The level of support here is always tailored to what you actually need, not what a billing code requires.

What matters most is this:
You have a steady guide who understands tapering, honors your pace, and won’t rush the process.

You can learn more about the low-touch prescribing pathway here:
The Dandelion Path at White Oak Medicine

Plant Spirit Medicine is the practice of working with the emotional, energetic, and symbolic teachings of plants — not just their biochemical actions.

Plants mirror our patterns.
They remind us how to root, how to soften, how to protect, how to rise again, and how to return to our natural rhythms.

This isn’t about replacing medicine with magic.
It’s about letting the living world help you reconnect to your own internal guidance — especially when you’ve been disconnected for a long time.

This session is slow, spacious, and thorough.
We map your full story — physical, emotional, developmental, ancestral, and environmental — and look at the patterns beneath your symptoms.

You’ll leave with clarity, a plan, and a sense of being truly seen.

That’s exactly why the Hawthorn One-Time Consult exists — a single, comprehensive session with a written plan you can take anywhere.

Instead of focusing on diagnoses, I focus on patterns — anxiety, depression, trauma, ADHD, hormone imbalance, insomnia, chronic stress, burnout, autoimmune patterns, gut issues, and nervous system dysregulation.

If your body or mind feels out of rhythm, this work is for you.

If you’re in immediate danger or experiencing thoughts of harming yourself or others, please contact 911 or your local crisis hotline right now.
Your safety comes first, before membership, before paperwork, before anything else.

When someone is in crisis — suicidal thoughts, hallucinations, severe panic, or sudden destabilization — the safest next step is often a higher level of care. That may include mobile crisis, an ER evaluation, or inpatient stabilization.
This doesn’t mean you’ll be “stuck” in the system forever. It means your life matters and deserves protection.

Most psychiatric units require a follow-up appointment with a mental health provider within 24 hours of discharge.
For existing patients, I can almost always accommodate that return visit.
For new patients, this may not be possible due to scheduling demands — in those cases, the hospital will arrange appropriate short-term follow-up before you transition into care here.

Once you’re medically and psychiatrically stable, we can begin the deeper work together.

Because early post-hospitalization is the most vulnerable period, I require the following for safety:

• If you were hospitalized within the last 3 months:
You must enroll in the weekly Multiflora Rose membership until you reach the 3-month mark beyond your discharge.
(Example: if you are 2 months out, you will need 1 month of weekly sessions.)

• If you are currently at risk of hospitalization:
You must begin weekly sessions for at least 3 months to prevent further destabilization.

• If a higher level of care is clearly needed and you decline it:
White Oak Medicine is not an appropriate setting for your treatment, and ongoing care may not be possible.
This is never punitive — it’s simply about safety and clinical integrity.

• I cannot provide care for individuals who are psychiatrically unstable or in active addiction.
Those seasons require a different level of containment and support other than what an outpatient membership can offer.

Medication may be part of stabilization, and that’s okay. Once the crisis has passed and your system has steadied, we can explore root causes, rebuild nervous system safety, and — when appropriate — taper medications slowly and respectfully.

There is a path forward. It just has to begin with safety.

If you want:
primary care → Redbud (DPC)
therapy and/or psychiatry → Multiflora Rose
medication-only (tapering or deprescribing) support → Dandelion
full functional medicine → Mugwort / Yarrow / Motherwort
a one-time second opinion → Hawthorn Consult

If you’re still unsure, I’ll help you choose.

Book a Connection Call Here

You can switch up or down after your first 3 months.
Changes are always tailored to where you are, not where you “should” be.

First, you’ll choose the path that feels like the best fit — whether that’s primary care, functional medicine, or heart-centered mental health care.

If you’re not sure where to start, this page can help:
[Compare Your Options at White Oak Medicine] (link)

Once you’ve chosen your path, every membership begins with a 2-hour Initial Evaluation. During that visit, we’ll map your story, clarify your goals, review your history and labs (if you have them), and make sure the membership level you chose (monthly, bi-weekly, or weekly) still fits what your nervous system and life are asking for right now.

So the sequence is:

1. Explore the options
2. Choose your path
3. Complete your 2-hour initial evaluation within that path
4. Continue in the membership rhythm that matches your season of life

No one is locked into a forever-identity here — just a clear starting place and a steady next step.
And my long-term goal, truly, is to help you reclaim agency over your own life again so you no longer need me… or any doctor, therapist, healer, or guru to tell you what your body is saying.

This work teaches you how to become your own healer again.
How to read your signals.
How to trust your instincts.
How to feel like a whole person instead of a collection of symptoms.

I’m not here to keep you tethered. I’m here to help you rise — with more clarity, more rhythm, more joy, and more vitality than you had before you arrived.

If you want to see which starting path feels like yours, you can explore them here:
The Rhythm Pathways at White Oak Medicine