Minnesota Natural Medicine was among the first functional and truly integrative medical clinics in the Midwest founded in 2001. Here, medical care and health management are customized to the individual’s uniquenesses – genetic, historical, and environmental. We do not manage health and disease with drop-down menus.
Our responsibility is to our patients/clients/customers only and to no other entities. There are now many large and small clinics owned by insurers who have suddenly developed an interest in “integrative medicine”. We applaud this interest but then expect that claims will now be covered even if out of network (us).
Christopher M Foley MD ABIM
Dr. Foley has been a practicing internist in Minnesota since 1979. In 1995 after 16 years as a hospital-based internist in St. Paul, he supervised the opening of the first integrative clinic in the Twin Cities. The HealthEast Healing Center functioned as an innovative crossroads between conventional and so-called “alternative medicine” with chiropractic, naturopathy, massage, acupuncture, and herbal medicine all under one roof. Eventually, this initiative paved the way for the development of the Woodwinds campus in Woodbury, Minnesota, where HealthEast’s new acute care hospital partnered with Northwestern College of Chiropractic to offer a Natural Care Clinic. This new and innovative campus promised to combine functional and integrative practices with conventional standards of care for the first time. After being one of the principle designers of the campus and practicing there for three years, Minnesota Natural Medicine was formed in St. Paul to represent a fully independent and integrative medical clinic. It opened in 2001 on September 11 ironically enough.
“I believe that good healthcare has many faces that requires personalized approaches. Uniquenesses in genetics, personal history and stressors, as well as environmental factors ultimately determine best methods for diagnosis and treatment. Nothing can replace good listening, understanding, and intellectual creativity. Our current healthcare system is in the process of being run by increasingly algorithmic electronic information systems that tend to promote health and medical practice by drop-down menus and templates. Insurers now own and design the workflow. Not here.”