Put your functional medicine pricing on your website: the model, a real starting price, and what costs extra. Google's autocomplete (checked 15 September 2026) shows the questions people type about it: "how much does functional medicine cost", "why is functional medicine so expensive", "is functional medicine covered by insurance". If your site doesn't answer, the answer arrives in your discovery call, and that call is your time.
This guide covers how to structure the page, what to spell out about labs and memberships, and the federal rules that apply when patients pay cash.
Should you publish functional medicine pricing?
Yes, in enough detail that someone can decide whether to book a call. The usual reason to hold back is that a number on the page might put people off.
It will put some people off. Some of them would have heard the number on the call and said no anyway, after taking a slot in your week.
Hiding the price has a second cost. The number still has to come up on the call, so part of a call meant for fit goes on the fee instead.
You don't need a full price list. You need the model, a starting point and the extras. Everything else can be a "from" price or a range, as long as it's one you actually charge.
Name the model before the number: packages, programs and memberships
A number on its own means nothing until the reader knows what it buys. Here are four common ways to structure functional medicine pricing, and what each needs on the page.
| Model | What the patient is buying | What the page has to say |
|---|---|---|
| Per visit | Individual appointments | Initial and follow-up fees, visit length, and how often follow-ups are usually scheduled in your practice |
| Program | A fixed stretch of care, such as three or six months | Length, number and length of visits, messaging access, and what happens when it ends |
| Membership | Ongoing access for a monthly or annual fee | What the fee covers, how often you bill, any minimum term, and how to cancel |
| Hybrid | A program or membership, with testing billed separately | Both prices, and which one each cost belongs to |
If you offer more than one, show them side by side on one page, with what each includes.
What the pricing page needs
- The model and length. "Six-month program" or "monthly membership", in the first line.
- A real price. A fixed fee, a "from" price or a range. Not "contact us".
- What's included. Number of visits, how long they are, in person or video, messaging, and who the patient sees.
- What's billed separately. Labs, supplements, imaging, and anything else that turns up on a second invoice.
- How payment works. Upfront or in instalments, and what happens if someone stops part way through.
- Your insurance position. That you don't bill insurance, and whether you provide a superbill. Don't suggest a patient will be reimbursed. You don't know their plan. If you see Medicare patients, your Medicare status limits what a membership fee can cover; our guide to transitioning to concierge medicine explains the two routes.
- What the discovery call is. How long it is, who it's with, and that it's about fit rather than care.
Then one booking button, repeated at the bottom of the page. Our booking pages for practices work the same way: a short form and one clear next step.
Be specific about lab and supplement costs
Testing can be the cost patients don't see coming, because it can sit outside the program fee and varies from patient to patient. Leaving it off the page doesn't make it smaller. It moves the surprise to after they've paid.
You can't quote a lab bill before you've seen the patient, but you can be honest about its shape:
- Say plainly that testing is billed on top, if it is.
- Give the range your own patients' testing fell in over the past year, taken from your own billing, and label it as a range.
- Say who bills for it: your practice, or the lab directly.
- Say whether supplements are included, sold separately, or bought wherever the patient likes.
Don't borrow a range from another practice's site or a cost-guide article. Your page is a statement about your prices, not the market's.
The Good Faith Estimate rules for cash-pay practices
Federal No Surprises Act rules give uninsured and self-pay patients the right to a written Good Faith Estimate. Here is what CMS's guide to Good Faith Estimates and the regulation at 45 CFR 149.610 say, checked 15 September 2026:
- Who counts as self-pay. Anyone without coverage for the service, and anyone who has coverage but chooses not to have a claim submitted. That second group matters in a cash-pay practice.
- When you owe one. When a self-pay patient books at least 3 business days ahead, or asks. Due within 1 business day if they booked 3 to 9 business days out, otherwise within 3 business days.
- What counts as a request. The regulation treats any discussion or inquiry about the potential cost of a service as a request for an estimate. A price question on your discovery call counts.
- What it is. A written, itemised estimate, on paper or electronically, kept with the patient's medical record.
- Recurring care. The regulation, at 45 CFR 149.610(b)(1)(x), allows one estimate for recurring services if it sets out the expected scope, such as timeframes, frequency and total number, and covers no more than 12 months.
- Disputes. A patient billed at least $400 more than a provider's estimate can use the federal patient-provider dispute process to dispute the bill if it's dated within the last 120 calendar days.
Our good faith estimate guide covers these rules in more depth, with a template.
What your website has to say about estimates
Part of the rule reaches your website. Under 45 CFR 149.610(b)(1)(iii), information about the availability of Good Faith Estimates has to be:
- written clearly and prominently displayed on your website, in the office, and on-site wherever scheduling or cost questions happen, and easily searchable from a public search engine;
- given out loud when someone schedules, or asks about cost;
- available in accessible formats, and in the languages spoken by the people scheduling with you.
CMS publishes a sample notice of the right to a Good Faith Estimate to use as a model. Put it where the prices are and where people book. The rule says it has to be easily searchable from a public search engine, so publish the notice as text on the page, not only as an image.
Your pricing page is not a Good Faith Estimate. The page is a public price list; the estimate is a written document for one patient. Federal rules require the estimate and a notice that estimates are available; the price list is your choice, and one doesn't replace the other. This is a summary of federal rules, not legal advice, so have a healthcare attorney check your process and your state's rules.
Memberships and payment plans: say how to stop
A membership sold online that keeps billing until the patient cancels has what federal law calls a negative option feature: the patient's silence, or failure to cancel, is treated as agreement to keep paying. The FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule defines the term. Under the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act, 15 U.S.C. 8403, a seller charging that way online has to:
- clearly and conspicuously disclose all material terms before taking billing information;
- get express informed consent before charging the account;
- provide a simple way to stop the recurring charges.
On the page, that means the price, how often you bill, any minimum term, whether it renews automatically, and exactly how to cancel. If cancelling takes a phone call during office hours, say so, and ask yourself whether that counts as simple.
Your state may have its own automatic-renewal rules on top of this; have your attorney check.
Keep prices apart from promises
The riskiest line on a pricing page is the one that attaches a price to an outcome. "A 90-day program to resolve your fatigue" is a health claim with a price tag on it.
The FTC's advertising guide for small business says ads must be truthful and not deceptive, that ads making health claims must, in most cases, be supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence, and that an ad can make a claim by implication, not only in so many words. Check your licensing board's advertising rules as well.
Describe what the fee buys: time, visits, testing, access. Name programs by what they include and how long they run, not by the result someone hopes for.
If you run ads to the page, Google reads it too. The Google Ads misrepresentation policy does not allow failing to clearly and conspicuously disclose the payment model or full expense a user will bear. A page that hides testing costs or the length of the commitment sits badly with that. Our functional medicine marketing page covers why ads in this specialty get disapproved.
Where the discovery call fits
With prices on the page, the discovery call changes job. It's no longer where the fee gets revealed. It's where you and the patient work out whether the program fits.
If cost comes up on the call, treat it as a request for a Good Faith Estimate. The regulation does.
Say on the page how long the call is, who runs it and what it covers. Keep the booking form to the basics: name, contact details and a time. Don't ask people to describe symptoms or history to book a call. That information doesn't belong in a marketing form.
Some people will still say "not yet". A commitment of several months is a big decision, which is why follow-up matters as much as the page. Our guide to patient acquisition strategies covers follow-up and the other channels that lead to the call.
We build pricing and booking pages for cash-pay practices, and run the same work on the two platforms we own and run. If you want yours looked at from the outside, start with the free audit.
Sources
- CMS — What is a good faith health insurance estimate?, checked 15 September 2026
- eCFR — 45 CFR 149.610, Requirements for provision of good faith estimates of expected charges for uninsured (or self-pay) individuals, checked 15 September 2026
- CMS — Sample notice of uninsured (or self-pay) individual's right to receive a Good Faith Estimate (PDF), checked 15 September 2026
- CMS — Dispute a medical bill, checked 15 September 2026
- CMS — Providers: payment resolution with patients, checked 15 September 2026
- GovInfo (U.S. Government Publishing Office) — 15 U.S.C. 8403, Negative option marketing on the Internet, checked 15 September 2026
- eCFR — 16 CFR 310.2, Telemarketing Sales Rule definitions, checked 15 September 2026
- FTC — Advertising FAQs: A guide for small business, checked 15 September 2026
- Google Ads Help — Misrepresentation policy, checked 15 September 2026