Treating the person, not just symptoms
A doctor who makes house calls is no longer something from the distant past. At least not in Cold Spring.
“I’ve always wanted to do house calls,” said Dr. Geeta Arora, 43. “No one does it, and I feel that’s real medicine.”
Arora recently set up her medical office on the second floor of the rectory of at St Mary’s Episcopal Church.
Her decision to become a doctor, and later her quest to open a small-town practice, were influenced by two men: her father and actor Michael J. Fox.
“My dad was 65 and really sick,” she recalled. “I was 21 and thinking about medicine; I needed to make sure he lived for a long time.”
Now 88, her father recently did 15 pushups with 15 pounds of weight on his back.
Doc Hollywood, starring Fox, planted a seed in Arora’s mind that brought her to Cold Spring in 2022. In the movie, Dr. Ben Stone, played by Fox, crashes his car in a small town and is sentenced to 32 hours of community service in the local health clinic. He likes it so much he stays and becomes the town’s doctor.
“I love this town,” Arora said of Cold Spring. “My husband laughs and says I’m finally Doc Hollywood. Slowing things down and getting to know the community is something I’ve always wanted to do.”
She is not a primary care doctor, describing her practice as between a general practitioner and a specialist. “I’m an internal medicine doctor, an integrative holistic medicine doctor,” she said. “It’s about seeing someone as a whole being, instead of just focusing on different organ systems.”
That means spending time with her patients. “I don’t want to do short visits; my intake interview is 90 minutes,” Arora said. That style of medicine may find her sitting at someone’s kitchen table discussing what a patient is eating, how they’re sleeping, how much exercise they’re getting and anything else that might be affecting their health.
It is not an approach she was taught in medical school. “We didn’t learn real health and wellness; we were taught symptom management,” she said. “Med school is all about acute care, about making sure someone doesn’t die. It’s not about ensuring people stay healthy or about reversing chronic disease.”
After medical school in the Caribbean, Arora completed her residency and intensive care training at the Albany Medical Center in 2011. “I also did a fellowship in integrative medicine, and I’ve been studying reversing chronic disease,” she said. “I want to help people to not only be healthy, but to stay healthy and have healthy brains for as long as possible.”
Arora said patients and doctors alike are frustrated by the current system. “It’s a pain in the butt to get in to see a doctor,” she said. “And doctors see 30 patients a day but don’t know much about health; they know about sick care.”
She sees lifestyle as a major impediment to good health. “Food is a big deal, and fiber is a huge missing component,” she said. “We’re not pooping well!”
That, along with little exercise, inadequate sleep and not understanding the impact of stress contribute to chronic diseases, including diabetes and heart disease, Arora said.
She credits her mother with inspiring her belief in the importance of healthy food. “I was brought up with Ayurveda, which is food as medicine,” she said.
Arora stresses that while she is not a general practitioner, she talks to patients’ GPs and their specialists. “I make sure there are no holes,” she said. “And in medicine right now, there are a lot of holes.”
Those gaps can come about when a patient finally gets to see a doctor — and just seven minutes later leaves with a prescription. “I like to slow down and figure out what’s going on with each person,” Arora said, adding she uses advanced diagnostics not available in a typical GP’s office. “Insurance-based practices only cover certain tests. There are a lot more tests that are way better and much more accurate.”
Her practice opted out of Medicare and doesn’t accept insurance. Arora provides a superbill that patients submit to their insurance company for potential reimbursement. They receive a “good-faith estimate” of anticipated costs and may be able to use a Health Savings Account or Flexible Spending Account to pay.
Arora explained that in the past she spent up to three hours on the phone requesting preauthorization from insurance companies and doesn’t have the capacity to hire multiple staff to handle that function. “I’d rather spend those three hours with my patients,” she said.
Arora maintains a small practice in New York City where she uses ketamine dosing and therapy to treat mental health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety. “I only take a small number of people,” she said. “It’s not for everybody, because it’s such an intense process.”
To inquire about becoming Dr. Arora’s patient, visit coldspringmd.com and use the link to set up a 15-minute preliminary meeting.
