Dr. Allison Apfelbaum, Naturopathic Doctor at Tree of Health

08/29/2026

F the system, as they say. This is wrong, and it keeps happening each year but worse. Providers get a small cut, which doesn’t go up each year, the “house” takes it all. Your money, your premium, and they decide what to cover. Lab tests, imaging, number of visits for pain management, which procedures, how much - who where what when. They own you. Providers have no say. Im not saying I have a solution, but this type of system cannot last it will break over time . This is why so many providers are switching to direct primary care, out of pocket, not saying this is a good solution either. I believe if enough people knew about this then the system can change.

08/27/2026

Did you know that we offer group discounts for our 4th Annual Business Seminar happening on Saturday October, 3, 2026, in Bellevue, WA?

Check them out here:

https://www.wanp.org/product/2026-business-seminar-group-registration-3-attendees/

https://www.wanp.org/product/2026-business-seminar-group-registration-5-attendees/

Speaking of “groups”, this year’s conference will feature another exciting presentation by a duo:

Christine James, ND, & Rubin Maidan, MD, will present "Abundance in Practice: How changing the way you think about money will help you make more."

Your relationship to money can greatly impact your ability to repel or attract its flow. Understand how your beliefs and biases around money can drive or inhibit financial abundance. In this brief seminar we will explore how opening your heart can unlock the flow of abundance in all of its forms.

Intended audience: new and established practitioners; medical students; non-clinical staff.

Register here for our Business Seminar!

https://www.wanp.org/2026-business-seminar/

PLEASE NOTE: Pricing will INCREASE on 9/1/2026 (less than a week away!)

Get those tickets ordered NOW!!

08/24/2026

Wow! Bastyr ND of Kenmore graduate, how impressive!

NEWS: Wendy Weber, N.D., Ph.D., has been selected to serve as director of NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH).

Dr. Weber will now oversee NCCIH’s $170 million budget which supports research that explores the fundamental science, usefulness, and safety of complementary/integrative health approaches and their roles in improving health.
Dr. Weber has served in a variety of roles since joining NIH in 2009. These include stints as acting NCCIH deputy director and acting director of the center’s extramural research division among others.

Her strategic management of clinical trials has driven real-world advancements in non-addictive pain management, such as acupuncture and mindfulness-based stress reduction.

Read the full story ➡️ bit.ly/45L1N3q

08/10/2026

Continuing our speaker line-up for our 4th Annual Business/Practice Management Seminar on Saturday, October 3rd, 2026 at the Hyatt Regency Bellevue!
Dawn Ipsen, PharmD, CEO of Kusler’s Compounding Pharmacy
“Plan Smarter, Finish Strong: An Annual Planning Framework for Independent Practices”
As the calendar year winds down, it's the perfect time for practice owners to step away from the daily demands of patient care and work on their business instead of simply in it.
This session introduces a practical five-step annual planning framework used by successful healthcare businesses to evaluate the past year, realign with their purpose, establish meaningful performance measures, and create focused SMART goals for the year ahead. Attendees will leave with a simple roadmap they can use to facilitate their own annual planning process and engage their teams in building a stronger practice.
Intended Audience:
Established naturopathic physicians; Current naturopathic medical students or newly graduated naturopathic physicians; Non-clinical audience; Appropriate for all healthcare setting types
Register for our Business Seminar Now!!
https://www.wanp.org/2026-business-seminar/

Continuing our speaker line-up for our 4th Annual Business/Practice Management Seminar on Saturday, October 3rd, 2026 at the Hyatt Regency Bellevue!

Dawn Ipsen, PharmD, CEO of Kusler’s Compounding Pharmacy

“Plan Smarter, Finish Strong: An Annual Planning Framework for Independent Practices”

As the calendar year winds down, it's the perfect time for practice owners to step away from the daily demands of patient care and work on their business instead of simply in it.

This session introduces a practical five-step annual planning framework used by successful healthcare businesses to evaluate the past year, realign with their purpose, establish meaningful performance measures, and create focused SMART goals for the year ahead. Attendees will leave with a simple roadmap they can use to facilitate their own annual planning process and engage their teams in building a stronger practice.

Intended Audience:
Established naturopathic physicians; Current naturopathic medical students or newly graduated naturopathic physicians; Non-clinical audience; Appropriate for all healthcare setting types

Register for our Business Seminar Now!!

https://www.wanp.org/2026-business-seminar/

08/09/2026

🌱 Did you know Optum (operating under United healthcare ) keeps buying up clinics (Everett clinic, poly clinic, smaller practices) and they also control the United healthcare insurance and have their own prescription company. SO that means, whoever they employ, they control too. Signs your doctor has next to zero autonomy and has to succumb to the insurance companies include:
🌱 Telling you they can’t order certain labs bc insurance “won’t cover it”. False, All labs when ordered with medical necessity, go towards your deductible.
🌱 Your time is limited to 1-2 “problems”. When a doctor has their visits limited to 1 or 2 things, the company they work for is trying to maximize reimbursements and telling you to make another visit for each concern to maximize how much they can get from insurance.
🌱 You are only offered medication as treatments. This is a reflection of medical school education (with influence of pharmaceutical companies), and lack of profit from “lifestyle” and more natural treatments. They aren’t taught and no one is able to make profit. Plus there is general consensus jn the allopathic world that they just don’t work. (Even those most drugs came from a whole food plant form).
🌱 You dont feel like your treatment plans are personalized. That’s because they aren’t, they are standardized to your symptoms. Any ND knows, your reason for XYZ (insomnia for example) can vary from person to person.
🌱 They spend 5-10 minutes with you. This is a sign of puppy-mill for profit medical clinics, see as many patients as they can in a day, limit the time spent. Independent clinics can spend more time, 30-60 minutes to really listen.

08/05/2026

Naturopathic medicine is where it’s at, most conventional docs may not admit that they would choose this profession. Maybe if they knew more about it, maybe if they could go back in time, maybe if it was more acceptable to go rogue against the drug companies who lead us to believe they are the only option.
NDs treat the cause, spend more time, see patients full heal. This job may not always be easy or accepted by others, but it’s extremely rewarding. Even after our profession fights daily for scope expansion, licensure in states (c’mon Florida wth), and loan caps for “professional degrees” (seriously attacking the students with the RISE and AHEAD rulings), I would choose this profession because of the results I see in the patients. I choose them despite the challenges, and keep fighting for this profession because it matters and it works.

08/04/2026

Naturopathic Doctors are the only education who trains primary care providers without buying into the AMA. We already have the training, the philosophy, the knowledge of both pharmaceutical and herbal medicine and nutrition hours. Hours upon hours, thousands of dollars in loans, but the credit from MDs just isn’t there. Functional medicine doctors still went to allopathic school and got merely a certificate. Give us the credit, support our profession, make it happen for the patient access to care.

08/03/2026

Tree of Health, exciting new beginnings as Dr. Penner chiropractic care adds to our team!

Born and raised in southern Alberta near Calgary, Dr. Penner grew up skiing and snowboarding down the epic slopes of the Canadian Rockies near Banff and playing competitive sports in high school and college including basketball, baseball, badminton,volleyball and hockey. When he was 19, he and his two brothers moved to Nashville to start a band. The best part of Nashville was meeting his now wife who happened to be from Whidbey Island. After 6 years of playing music for a living, Dr. Penner decided he
should grow up and become either a PE teacher or a chiropractor, so he moved to Portland and graduated Cum Laude from University of Western States with both a
Bachelor of Science in human biology and Doctor of Chiropractic (D.C.) degree.
Dr. Penner moved to Seattle after graduation and started his own practice in 2009. He is passionate about using his hands to fix peoples pain as quickly as possible, using both
chiropractic joint treatment and soft tissue techniques.
His love of life and movement has resulted in a vibrant lifestyle, and when he is not treating patients you can find him training for a trail marathon or ½ Iron Man triathlon,
playing or watching a sport with his 15 year old son, riding one of his motorcycles, playing guitar or reading a good historical fiction novel.

07/31/2026

**Weight-loss GLP-1 plateau? Let’s discuss why!
💫 First of all, the dose may not be optimal. Lowest dose that is effective, may mean slightly increasing over time to gain progress.
💫 Inflammation and gut health, the body simply does not lose weight when it is inflamed. Talk to an ND about additional GI panel testing for finding any underlying overgrowths.
💫 Insufficient macronutrient balance, I typically give patients a calorie deficit goal with 40% as protein intake. Less than that, and the body cannot enter any kind of fat-burning mode.
💫 Weight-training! This is especially true for women entering peri and post menopause, cardio alone is not building or maintaining enough muscle mass to support weight loss.
💫 Hormones are out of whack. This may include thyroid, adrenals (stress), female hormones or androgens. Optimal health comes from balance, and for weight loss, a GLP-1 alone may not be enough.
💫 Lack of sleep/rest. If your body is never entering a healing state, or not getting a full deep sleep, it will not relax enough to let go of storage. It is stuck in fight or flight stress mode, inflamed and not ready to let go of weight.

💫 GLP-1 is a tool, meant to support the natural processes to reduce inflammation and get to goal weight. It is not the only thing that matter. Talk to an ND on how to optimize and take control of your health.

07/27/2026

Our amazing speaker line-up for our 4th annual Business/Practice Management Seminar on Saturday, October 3rd!

Chad Aschtgen, ND, FABNO
Are You Ready For Your First Resident?

In this presentation, Dr. Chad Aschtgen will present detailed information on how to determine if your clinic is ready to support a resident and - if so - how to prepare.
He'll talk financial viability of on-boarding a resident, as well as regulatory framework for supporting and training a resident.

Intended audience: established practitioners; non-clinical staff

Register for our Business Seminar now!!

For Students/1st year or 2nd year of Licensure:

https://www.wanp.org/product/2026-business-seminar-registration-student-1-2/

For Member/Non-Member:

https://www.wanp.org/product/2026-business-seminar-registration/