What is your center's mission?

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Our mission is to clear the way for healing by removing barriers and supplying what is needed for optimal health.

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What kind of medicine is practiced at the Mandarin Wellness Center?

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We practice Functional and Integrative Medicine. This is the model of medicine of the future, which seeks to integrate every specialty of medicine with the latest findings from research and applies to a holistic vision of human physiology to aid the body in restoring native function through diet and lifestyle modifications, nutraceutical supplementation, use of herbs and/or compounded molecules, judicious use of pharmaceutical agents, and energy medicine.

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What insurance do you accept?

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We work with patients from all backgrounds who have every type of insurance product and those who are uninsured. We are also a hybrid private practice with a portion of our patients opting to be on a budget-friendly subscription program called our concierge program and others on a cash-based fee-for-service model. Each insurance policy is unique in the benefits it offers to its policyholders and our office can provide an invoice that contains all the information necessary for the patient to file for reimbursement. Depending on the allowance of the plan that allows for out of network care (e.g., PPO), the reimbursement may be substantial.

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What are your areas of concentration?

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The beauty about the medicine we practice is that we are trained to serve a broad swath of the population who either suffer from chronic disease, whether it be an autoimmune or rheumatologic condition, metabolic disease, neurogenerative disorder, infectious or otherwise inflammatory; or for those who are still enjoying good health but want to do everything in their power to maintain and extend their disability-free months and years. We are here to support you on whatever journey you find yourself.

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Do I need to be an established patient of the practice to use all the services?

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While everyone is welcomed to a professional consultation with the physician, we avail our services to non-established patients who would like to receive basic support that does not require an in-depth medical history review and decision making. These include our IV Vitamin services (for higher that 25 grams of Vitamin C infusion, we do require a G6PD lab test to be performed for safety), Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (patient will fill out a form that goes over contraindications to make sure they are eligible to receive the therapy), Frequency Specific Microcurrent (the staff has a list of dozens of available programs to help you feel better from many common conditions).

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Does Dr. Balbino have hospital admitting privileges?

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The days that the primary care physician would admit their patient to the hospital and do morning and evening rounds before and after clinic each day are about over, with rare exceptions. These days, admitting privilege only means that a physician can call their affiliated hospital to have the patient come into the hospital for tests and treatment bypassing the emergency room stay. For close to a decade of his former Geriatric practice, with admitting privileges, Dr. Balbino only used that privilege less than a handful of times. We are committed to taking care of our patients to prevent them from having to be admitted into the hospital in the first place, but if that happens, we will advise them when we believe they need to go through the Emergency Department for evaluation.

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Does Dr. Balbino do Acupuncture like Dr. Hartman used to do?

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Dr. Shirley Hartman was formally trained in Acupuncture decades ago while she has retired from full-time medical practice in June 2023, she still practices Acupuncture at the center for a few days of each month. This service is open to established and non-established patients as the 5-element style of Acupuncture has a wide applicability of help to allow the body to self-heal. Dr. Hartman trained Dr. Balbino for a few months in the 5-element style of Acupuncture for him to be equipped with an introductory level of knowledge to serve his patients in the capacity of a referring physician. Dr. Balbino is committed to expanding his professional relationships in the region so that even when Dr. Hartman fully retires, he will have other more-than-capable professionals to refer our patients.

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If you have any questions not already found above, please call us at (904) 268-5826 or email us today at office@mwcjax.com and one of our friendly staff will help you get a the answers you need.