Ethics

As a registered dietitian nutritionist, I uphold the ethics of the profession.

I also will speak to and elaborate on more personal ethics & practice here, so you can have an understanding of how I work with ethics. I am in a constant engagement with my ethical practice, pulling in mentors when needed to find a clear path forward that holds and honors my client’s humanity and care. Part of my ethical practice also includes honoring my own humanity so that I can continue to sustain care that is rooted, embodied, and consistently steered towards healing, liberation, and justice.

Within my ethical framework, I work towards harm-reductive practices and commit to continue learning how my social position holds unearned power and the potential for harm.

I honor the people I work with’s expertise in their lived experience. I ensure consent before offering education, advice, or my perspective. I continue to learn about and hone trauma informed care & practice.

I name the societal and cultural influences on how my clients relate to and feel about their bodies, how they feed and move them. I discuss the social determinants of health, that oppression and trauma impact health outcomes, and I do not continue the delusion that health is dependent on one or two variables. I will also not be complicit with the false & harmful idea that the pursuit of health behaviors is a moral obligation.

I make my space as safe as possible. I am committed to unlearning narratives from systems of oppression, including anti-blackness, racism, transphobia, ableism, white supremacist thinking and action, anti-fat bias, classism, and misogny. I am committed to relearning ways that allow for the true expansiveness of our humanity to flourish. I am committed to the honoring of and reparations for lineages whose stories have been denied and erased. I will work to repair. 

I commit to openness, curiosity, and humbleness when offered feedback and when called in, will manage my fragility in my own time, and will integrate and do better.

I continue to learn to listen better and to be aware of how my humanity in the room impacts the humans I work with’s healing process.

I commit to activism and reparations outside of my practice, for projects that advance the safety and wellbeing of all bodies and center the voices who have been most violently harmed as a product of white supremacy delusion, a concept I learned from the brilliant Sonya Renee Taylor.  

I am committed to my own healing and liberation process.

Pricing

I believe that it is important to have transparency around my pricing, both for those seeking services and for myself. 

Pricing is something I grapple with a great deal, holding my past and current class and other privileges, the increasing prices of everyday goods, my desire for all people to be able to access care, my desire to make a sustainable living for myself, my female socialization and Trauma lineages that foster within me a reactionary response to give my labour away, my own shame and grapple with internal worthiness that foster within me reactionary underselling, and my knowing that I cannot be held responsible for the failures of the systems as they currently create the spaces we are in where some have access and others don’t informed by racism, ableism, classism, anti fatness, and more. I continue to work to repair harm and work towards a sustainable living for myself.

I often hear client’s frustration at the expense and inaccessibility of care. Part of the reason I want to create some transparency here is so we know where to aim the blame, and then we know where to put our efforts towards change (see insurance pricing as a place to start). As an eating disorder provider, I must have my own care to deal with the vicarious trauma that is innate in the work, and as a provider that suffers with ongoing trauma impacts and needs additional support for my neurodivergence, I need ongoing care and support. Both for these reasons and because the depth of the work that I do is profound, with my capacity for space holding and empathy, I am not able to see what is defined as a “typical” caseload in the field of 20-25 clients a week. Ethically, it is important for me to be present and grounded as much as possible in this work and so my caseloads have varied throughout my time practicing but are much lower than what is considered a “typical” full time load. I am additionally beholden to a small business tax to the feds of 30% of my income, along with state and city taxes (in my pricey home of seattle), and responsible for my own health care and crappy insurance premiums and copays and my retirement savings. Acknowledging that while I name all these facts that I’ve also had the privilege to get here and have support to keep me here in times where I come up short for my bills. 

I re-evaluate my prices on a regular, at least yearly basis. I believe in a system where all people access the care they need and where providers are payed a livable wage. This is not the system we are in, and I’m working to make the most ethical business I can within that framework.

Dietetic services

Dietetic services for eating disordered / disordered eating care often (though not always) involve a long term commitment to support. I work with your care team or help you to build one, typically involving a doctor, therapist, and sometimes eating disorder coach, to help support you in your goals for your care. This work is intimate, as when we are healing relationship to our food and body we are healing so much beyond that, because food and body stories touch all aspect of our lives, as they are such intimate necessary parts of who we are. We may work together on food adequacy, learning to listen to your body, medical nutrition therapy, boundaries to protect your healing process, medical advocacy, holding your body story (as it is, not as how external narratives have warped it to be), removing barriers to regular feeding, accessing support when and where needed, finding neutrality and or joy in food, exploring other areas of pleasure if it’s accessible, and trusting yourself and your process and moving towards a trusting relationship with your body. 

Pricing for dietetic services, out of pocket: $235.00 for an initial 55 minute session, and $195.00 for follow-up sessions (I can provide super bills for out of network insurance companies)  

Insurance coverage: I am currently contracted with Regence, Premera, and Lifewise insurance companies. For now, this is how I make my dietetic care accessible. Insurance pays me 60% (premera and lifewise, most of my caseload) to 75% (Regence) of my cash fee and though I have raised my prices throughout my 7 year career, insurance has not yet raised them once for my increased cost of living or to recognize my growing clinical and ongoing training expertise. I have often had to write off large sums because of insurance related mistakes in billing and am caught between my client and the exploitative nature of insurance systems.

Coaching Services :

I developed this coaching program in response to an increasing number of people reaching out to me that reside out of state or out of the United States where I am not able to provide dietetic care. This is also a great fit for people who do not want the commitment of ongoing care, but need some inspiration/ direction/ a “boost” in their food and body healing journey. This service, which you can learn more about here, is an combination of my dietetic practice and clinical experience, Body Trust training, and lived experience. Sessions will look and feel quite similar to my dietetic sessions, but do not include medical nutrition therapy or coordination of care with your healthcare team (though I can help you prepare talking points for other healthcare providers). The coaching service is a short term process created to give you a boost in your own healing process. The program lasts 6 months, with 5 supported sessions and email / text access in between for support. 

Pricing for 6 month coaching program with the Radical Dietitian: $1600.00 (can be broken up into 4 payments of $400.00), I currently do not have a sliding scale fee as I work to make my business sustainable 

Supervision/ consultation/ mentorship services: 

I love working with other dietetic and therapy professionals and colleagues to support their practice in eating disorder/ disordered eating care from a deeply trauma informed and neurodivergent aware and affirming lens. This work is so difficult and we also need to support ourselves in it. It is such a great honor to be nurturing and tending the field, which I care deeply about, in this way. Most often this shows up as ongoing support, people book once a month or reach out when they need support, but it can also be a one off thing- which might be especially well suited for doctors, psychiatrists, or other healthcare professionals. We are seeing an increasing number of folks with eating disorders in the healthcare system, and there is such a lack of training in these areas, I’m happy to support beginners with questions on how to support eating disorder clients in the healthcare field.

Pricing for individual supervision/ consultation/ mentorship services: Sliding scale fee $195 - $225 / 55 minute session ; this sliding scale is available so that those with more resources can pay more and support my living and those with less resources can pay less and trust that those with more resources believe in mutual aid and care and that you are deserving of support and care no matter what. If these ranges are still outside of your ability to access this service, please reach out to me.

Pricing for supervision / consultation groups: $450.00 for six 90 minute sessions($75 dollars per session), capped at 6 participants