What To Expect and FAQ

We are so excited that you made the decision to meet with a dietitian. Your dietitian has a higher level of education that understands your medical needs and its impact on your nutrition needs. We take this knowledge and then get to know you on a personal level so we can begin to make small steps to achieving a healthier you. We believe that it is important to get to know all about you such as your health history, cooking and shopping habits, favorite foods, and what a typical weekday and weekend day look like so that we make small, realistic steps toward long- term change. You will see that the first appointment is spent getting a lot of information from you so we can learn better about you and all that affects your food choices. You should leave the appointment with the first steps for making a small change, but don’t worry-we will get to all the other things that aren’t covered in the first appointment in future appointments. Think of working with a dietitian like you would learning to play a musical instrument-it takes practice and also frequent visits with the “expert” to learn ways that you can improve and to give you new information with each visit.

In the beginning, you may meet with your dietitian more frequently, like every 2 or 3 weeks and then the visits may be more spaced out. We have learned that our most successful clients are the ones that have more frequent visits in the beginning when we are working on smaller goals. These more-frequent visits give you the opportunity to come back for check-ins and share successes and help overcome any obstacles when trying to learn a new habit. The best news is that most insurance plans cover these visits so you should not have to pay out of pocket for them! Make sure to give us your updated insurance information so we can verify your benefits.

We do not give out meal plans. Our experience has taught us that people don’t eat the same and don’t like to be told what they can and cannot eat, thus the reason for the high failure rate with fad diets that eliminate certain foods or food groups. We will give you some meal ideas and share some recipes if you would like and give you an idea of what you could eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Our clients feel like this is a better solution for them and less restrictive than telling them they have to eat oatmeal for breakfast, salad with tuna for lunch, and grilled chicken and broccoli for dinner.

We are credentialed with BCBS, Cigna, Aetna and MedCost and most of those insurance plans cover nutrition counseling at 100% with no copay or out of pocket costs to individuals. We prefer to verify your insurance just so there are no unexpected charges so please make sure that we have your most updated insurance information. It is the client’s responsibility to provide our office with the most updated insurance information that they are a current member of. Failure to do so will result in charges that you will be responsible for. For any out of state insurance plan, we cannot verify insurance coverage so a credit card will be kept on file and used only in the event of any insurance denied coverage.

We understand that things come up and you may need to change your appointment. If that happens, please email our office at office@christierd.com to let us know. We require at least a 24-hour notice. Failure to give appropriate notice will result in a no-show fee of $50.

No, you don’t need to take any notes. Your dietitian will take notes and include any product recommendations and those notes will be shared with you following your appointment.

We understand that life happens and sometimes it prevents you from working on the goals that you set during your session with your dietitian. However, that is the exact time that you need to meet with your dietitian! We can work together to see if those are still realistic goals for you or if we need to change things up and set different goals. Think of it this way-when you are seeing a therapist, you don’t cancel your appointment when you are struggling. That is the exact time that you need your therapist to help you during challenging times. We see your relationship with your dietitian as the exact same and we want to help you work through the challenging times of life when it comes to nutrition and see what we can do differently to help you improve your health.