We believe that the key to successful nutrition care starts with the right provider match. Like home-cooked meals with a tasty blend of spices, each of our nutritionists brings a unique blend of specialty (expertise and interest), experience, and personality - and we want to help you find the one who best fits your needs. 

To get started, please take a moment to explore the conditions list (link) and our providers’ bios below, and consider who aligns best with your goals. When booking your appointment, please include a few details about why you're seeking care and what you hope to achieve. This helps us ensure your selected provider is the best fit for your concerns and preferences.

If we feel another team member may better suit your needs, we’ll follow up to help guide you to the right provider. Our goal is to set you up for success from the very first visit.

If you need help finding the right match, please give us a call or send us a text at 206-853-0534, or submit our contact form, and we’ll help you out!  

Simply click on the link, find a time with the provider you’ve chosen, and book your appointment! Shortly thereafter, during business hours, you will receive an email confirmation with an invitation to create your profile.

Book Your Appointment

After receiving an email invitation from us, you will create your profile on our patient portal, ChARM. In addition to collecting important medical information for your nutritionist or dietitian, there is a series of online questionnaires that provide us with your insurance and billing details, as well as other relevant information. Your appointment is not fully confirmed until these forms are completed and submitted. These questionnaires can take up to 45-60 minutes to complete. You do not need to complete them all at once, but you must submit the questionnaires before your first visit, and the sooner the better to give your provider time to prepare for your visit. If you have any questions about these forms, please contact us at 206-853-0534.

We have a 2 full business days cancellation policy with a $175 late cancellation fee, which cannot be billed to insurance. Our business days are Monday through Friday. To illustrate this, if your appointment is on Monday at 2 pm, we need to hear from you by Thursday at 2 pm to avoid the late cancellation charge. 

Our cancellation policy is designed to protect our providers and keep the cost down. It is very difficult to fill an appointment if canceled very close to the appointment time, so please text or call us directly at 206-853-0534 as soon as possible to coordinate a schedule change.  We attempt to refill canceled spots so that we can accommodate all clients waiting to see us. Thank you for helping us do this.

Starkel Nutrition is contracted with the following insurance companies. Your insurance plan, even if it is with one of the following insurance companies, may or may not cover nutrition services. Please verify ahead of your first appointment.

• Aetna
• Asuris NW Health
• Blue Cross/Blue Shield
• Bridgespan
• CIGNA incl. HealthComp
• First Choice Health
• Healthcare Management Administrators
• Kaiser Permanente, incl. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Washington (PPO plans only, no HMO)
• Lifewise Health Plan of Washington
• Meritain Health
• Premera Blue Cross (Washington State)
• Regence Blue Shield of Washington
• Regence Group Administrators
• Uniform
• UnitedHealthcare (plans vary)
  

If you do not see your insurance company listed here, please ask our biller. Some of the small plans may not be listed above.

To verify if your insurance covers your visits, we recommend you call your insurance company, or we can do this for you.*

If you’d like our help with this, you must first create your profile within Charm (see above). During that process, we request your insurance information. Once we receive this, we will check your insurance and send you a message via Charm with the details of your coverage. You may also reach our biller directly at (206) 725-0683 or billing@starkelnutrition.com. You are responsible for knowing your coverage.

Although we can verify your benefits, some clients choose to verify their nutrition benefits directly with their insurance companies. Our providers at Starkel Nutrition are credentialed with multiple medical insurance plans. At the insurance companies, our service is defined as “dietary counseling and surveillance” and “medical nutrition therapy (MNT),” not just “nutrition”, and most plans consider our service to be preventive care, meaning your deductible may not even apply!

While it is always your responsibility to know the coverage details of your insurance plan, we have put together some questions to help you ask your insurance company if it covers our service. These are the questions you can ask when verifying insurance. When talking to your insurance company, please always write down the date, time, and the person’s name or employee ID, and reference number.

• Do I have insurance coverage for dietary surveillance, medical nutrition therapy, nutrition, or nutritional counseling? Or some companies search by the billing codes 97802 and 97803.
• Are these services covered under preventive services? This means it is usually not subject to the deductible.
• Is Starkel Nutrition In-Network for my plan? If not, what is my Out-of-Network coverage? Am I covered for a certain percentage only?
• Do I need a PCP (Primary Care Physician) referral or pre-authorization for insurance to cover my visits? (Most do not.)
• Do only certain diagnoses qualify for coverage?Does it cover Z71.3? (This is our most common billing/ICD-10 code. They might give you ICD-10 codes - write these down to let us know.)
• Are my visits subject to the deductible? If yes, how much do I need to fulfill before my insurance will begin covering sessions?
• Do I have a co-pay and/or coinsurance? If so, how much per visit?
• How many nutrition sessions do I get per year, or per lifetime?

With this information, you will be informed of all your financial obligations, and we are happy to interpret what they tell you if it seems confusing. We’re happy to say that most of the time, our clients are pleasantly surprised that nutrition is covered 100%!
* As a courtesy, our office will verify your insurance benefits before your appointment. However, please understand that the information we receive from your insurance provider is only a quote of benefits, not a guarantee of coverage or payment. Final determination of benefits and payment is made by your insurance company once the claim we have submitted is processed. We strongly encourage you to contact your insurance provider directly to confirm your individual coverage, including co-pays, coinsurance, and deductible, and any exclusions. While we are happy to assist, it is ultimately your responsibility as the policyholder to understand your insurance benefits and financial responsibilities.

At this time, we do not accept Medicare or Medicaid, as they do not offer adequate coverage for nutrition. Specifically, they only cover RDNs and not CNs (we have both at Starkel Nutrition), but more importantly, they only cover nutrition services for Diabetes and End-Stage Renal Disease. We can provide you with a Superbill that you can submit for possible reimbursement by Medicare, Medicaid, and/or any supplemental plan you might have chosen to buy.

After each appointment, we will bill your insurance company for your visits with our providers. Any patient responsibility (which is the insurance term for what you need to pay) is due at the time of service. This means that any co-pay is due on the day of your visit. Remaining balances for deductible or coinsurance will be charged automatically to your card on file when we have received the explanation of benefits (EOB) from your insurance plan. If by chance your insurance does not cover our services, you are responsible for payment. This is why we highly suggest verifying your insurance coverage first.

At Starkel Nutrition, we believe that everyone should have access to our services regardless of insurance coverage. We offer discounted private pay rates for those without insurance or who have plans we are not credentialed with, and our various packages further reduce the rate per session for clients without insurance coverage. 

Nutritional Counseling Fee Schedule

Most medical insurance plans cover our services

INTAKE/FIRST APPOINTMENT*

50-60 minutes $360.00

Discounted rate, for private pay $239.00 

FOLLOWUP APPOINTMENTS**

50-60 minutes $318.00

Discounted rate, for private pay $215.00

PACKAGE OPTIONS FOR PRIVATE PAY ***

4-session $193.50/session after 10% off $774.00

6-session $189.20/session after 12% off $1,135.00

12-session $182.75/session after 15% off $2,193.00

18-session $176.30/session after 18% off $3,173.00

LAB ADMINISTRATIVE FEE Varies depending on test 

LATE CANCELLATION/NO-SHOW FEE ** $175.00

• All prices are for individuals, not shared.
• * Initial appointments are not included in packages.
• ** Please see the late cancellation/no-show policy below and in our questionnaires
• *** Packages must be used within a year of purchase. All package fees are to be paid in full at the time of purchase. Package payment plans incur a charge of $10/month until fully paid.
• Senior discount (65 yrs or better) is 10% off individual appointments - does not apply to packages
• Full-time students' discount is 10% with a current student ID - does not apply to packages
• As of August 1, 2024, subject to change

We have a 2 full business days cancellation policy with a $175 late cancellation fee, which cannot be billed to insurance. Our business days are Monday through Friday. To illustrate this, if your appointment is on Monday at 2 pm, we need to hear from you by Thursday at 2 pm to avoid the late cancellation charge.

Our cancellation policy is designed to protect our providers and keep the cost down. It is very difficult to fill an appointment if canceled very close to the appointment time, so please text or call us directly at 206-853-0534 as soon as possible to coordinate a schedule change.  We attempt to refill canceled spots so that we can accommodate all clients waiting to see us. Thank you for helping us do this.

When your first appointment has been scheduled, you will receive an email with an invitation to join our patient portal. We use the secure electronic medical charting and scheduling platform called Charm. 

We ask that you submit some questionnaires through Charm before your appointment:

• Patient Registration Form, Financial & Cancellation Policy, and Payment Card Authorization: In short, this is about you, your insurance information, and our policies. To bill your insurance, we need both your insurance card and your photo ID. Please upload your photo ID through the Documents tab and share it to Administrative Assistant. See under “Can I Share Documents With You?”
• HIPAA Statement - Privacy Policy - Medical Release and Diagnosis Code Form: These are for patient confidentiality and privacy and allow us to request your medical diagnoses (which we often need for billing), labs, and chart notes from your primary care provider or other appropriate physician. We will try to obtain your medical records, including lab results, ahead of your first appointment. If you have records you would like to share with us, you can upload and share such via the documents tab as you do with your ID (see above)
• Intake Form: This is about your health history and the goals you want to accomplish.  This form is extremely helpful for your provider. Therefore, please take your time (up to 45 minutes) to complete it carefully and let us know if you are unable to complete this form.

Credit Card/Debit Card: To reserve your first appointment and to stay current for any billing (payment is due at the time of service), we require that a payment card be saved on file. This is encrypted within ChARM, the electronic health record system. All credit card payments incur a 3.2% surcharge.

• Initial appointments last about 60-90 minutes. 
• If booked through the office, we often schedule follow-up appointments when we’re scheduling your intake appointment, so that you are assured of getting on your nutritionist’s schedule in a timely manner. You can also schedule these online yourself or at the end of your intake session with your nutritionist. We also have online scheduling for follow-up appointments. These also last 60-90 minutes.

This is a list of blood chemistry labs that give a basic overview of nutritional health. If you have had these labs done within the last 24 months, please upload them to ChARM. If you have no recent labwork, you will discuss these and other possible labs to do during your appointments, if considered relevant by your nutritionist.

If you and your nutritionist decide to get the following tests, you can ask your doctor if he/she will order them. If yes, they may be covered by insurance. Your nutritionist can also order labs at discounted rates. However, if you order through your nutritionist, they are not covered by insurance.

Please make sure you have your blood drawn after a 12-14 hour fast (no food, but water is okay), so it is recommended that you have blood drawn early in the morning and bring breakfast with you. Do not take Vitamin D supplements 4 days prior to your blood draw.

• CBC with differentials, including platelets (complete blood count)
• Lipid profile (total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, triglycerides)
• Liver profile (ALT/SGPT, albumin, alk phos, AST/SGOT, bilirubin, globulin, LDH, total protein, GGT)
• Kidney panel (BUN, serum creatinine, uric acid)
• Minerals and bone (iron, calcium, phosphorus)
• Fluids and electrolytes (serum chloride, potassium, serum sodium, CO2)
• Fasting BG
• Vitamin D 25-hydroxy
• Blood type
• Ferritin

For those with thyroid issues:

• Complete Thyroid panel w/TSH (total T-4/thyroxine, T-3 uptake, free thyroxine index/FTI – T-7, TSH)
• Anti-TPO and anti-TGB antibodies

The Starkel Nutrition clinic is located in The University Business Center, 4500 9th AVE NE, Suite 300, Seattle, WA 98105. Enter through the double glass doors and take the elevator to the third floor. Walk past the building’s very friendly receptionist, take a right, and you’ll find us in room #22 at the end of the hallway.

• Visitors to the building are offered one hour of free parking in the parking garage north of our building, entered from 47th Street by the corner of 9th and 47th. Qualified stalls are in the lot in front of “Good To Go” or in the top two levels of the parking structure, P2 & P3 (above Trader Joe’s). To register for the hour of free parking, use the pay station next to stall #73 and follow the prompts to eventually select “Biz Ctr - 1 hour free” and enter validation number 4500. Our sessions can sometimes be longer than 1 hour, so you may wish to add an additional hour at a reduced rate. Parking apps cannot be used for this option.
• Street parking may be available nearby at a very reasonable price.
• Diamond Parking, which is an independent parking lot company, offers more expensive paid parking options across the street on 9th Ave NE.
• Disabled Parking - For those with a displayed Washington State Disabled Parking Privilege plate or placard, free parking is available in the lot directly across the street, in any of the handicapped stalls.
• The U District light rail station is located 3 blocks from the business center. 
• A major bus route hub is located within a block. Bus routes include Roosevelt Way NE and NE 45th Ave.

Yes, in ChARM, you can share documents such as lab tests or doctor visit notes through the ‘Documents’ section.

• Click ‘Upload’ and choose the file you want to share.
• Click ‘Upload And Share.’
• Then share with ‘Care Member’ and select ‘Administrative Assistant’. 
• If you upload without sharing, we do not get access.

You can send messages to our Administrative Assistant through ChARM Messages. You can also message your provider this way. However, many questions require conversation. In this case, we recommend that you note your questions for your next appointment.

The short answer is no, we do not prescribe medications and can not authorize a refill of your current medication. That being said, we work to provide effective treatment via individualized lifestyle, diet modifications, and supplements that we recommend. While we recognize that not all conditions can be treated without medication, we are trained in medical nutrition therapy and can be a valuable resource for managing many medical conditions such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. For complex medical conditions, we can serve as a valuable member of your health care team, working collaboratively with your primary care providers to individualize your treatment plan to meet your unique needs and optimize your overall care.

Our professional opinion is that most of us do not get our optimal amount of nutrients on a daily basis from our foods. Our food supply has dramatically changed over the years, and we do not need to ingest as much food (and accompanying nutrients) as we used to, because we all have relatively sedentary lives. As we are working with you to achieve optimal health, we will recommend some baseline supplements to you for good general health. In addition, if you are working on a specific health condition, we may recommend other supplements to bring your body back into balance more quickly. For most conditions, these additional supplements may be discontinued later, once the imbalance is addressed.

You might be able to find the answer in the user guide, here: https://www.charmhealth.com/resources/phr-user-guide/patient-portal-registration.html. If not, please give us a call or send us a text at 206-853-0534.