Preparing for a Lactation Visit

Before we meet

I am partnered with The Lactation Network (TLN) to provide a simplified process for getting insurance to cover lactation visits. TLN currently provides up to 6 FREE VISITS for most PPO plans with Blue Cross Blue Shield, Anthem, Cigna, United Healthcare and Multiplan.

If your insurance provider is not covered by TLN, it's always a great idea to call your insurance company before our appointment to see what your plan covers for lactation consults.

Under the Affordable Care Act, your insurance should cover lactation support; however, I can't guarantee that your insurance will reimburse you for our visit. Payment is due at the time of the consult and I will provide you with a Superbill that you can submit to your insurance company for reimbursement.

Please fill out the health history and consent forms that I will email you through a secure HIPAA compliant portal.

I would love for you to send me pictures or videos of anything you are concerned about or want to work on through that portal. If you can catch a feeding behavior that concerns you on video when it happens, we can go over it together during the consult.

Try not to feed your baby too close to our scheduled meeting time - I plan to observe a feeding, and this will work best if your baby is hungry! On the other hand, if your baby is getting hangry before we meet, go ahead and give a snack feeding if you can. Don't stress about it - we will make it work!

For home visits

If you have other little ones, it would be helpful to have a planned activity for them to do while we spend our time together.

Whatever you do, DO NOT clean your house for my visit.

I am there to help you feed your baby and provide support, not to add any stress.

Having your spouse or support person and any other family members you'd like with you during the consult is perfectly welcome as long as they have your consent to be there.

For virtual consults

For virtual consults, it may be necessary to have your spouse/support person hold the phone so that I can see you and your baby more closely and from different angles.

Please make sure that you have some good lighting so that I can easily view you and your baby. Setting up in front of a window is usually best, or you can bring extra lighting into your space.

During Our Consult

We will chat about your main concerns and health history and get to know each other a little before diving in.

With your permission, I will take a look at your breasts before and after a feeding.

I will observe you feed your baby just as you would if I wasn't with you.

I will guide you on how to position your baby so that together we can assess your baby's oral function.

I may ask you to lay your baby on a flat surface to see how your baby moves.

We will talk about my observations and go over everything you are doing that is working or anything I find that you can improve to help you reach your feeding goals.

Together, we will tweak anything causing pain, discomfort, or stress and feeding basics like positioning, latching techniques, paced bottle feeding, hand expressing, suck training exercises, etc.

I will leave you with a brief 48-hour handwritten care plan and instructions on how and when we will follow up based on what we decided to work on to move closer to reaching your goals.

After Our Consult

Within 24 hours, I will email you a Superbill (if not using TLN for insurance) with my Provider information so that you can submit it to your insurance company for reimbursement (this will also be your receipt).

I will also email you a Care Plan that details everything that we talked about during our visit and will send a separate report to your baby's pediatrician and your healthcare provider, if necessary.

I am available to you for one week via secure email or text for unlimited support for any questions you may have about what we discussed during our visit and the Care Plan.

Please note there may be times when we may need to schedule a follow-up consult, especially if something significant changes or something new comes up, as I may not be able to answer your questions without reassessing you and your baby.