Want to know exactly what to do to get better, with a personalised action plan and dedicated support team to help you get results? Get to the root of your health problem, and you can feel happy in your body again.
Our women’s health specialists, Rebecca (who works remotely) and Vicki (based in Melbourne), can help with a range of women’s health conditions, including:
As a woman, you can face many health challenges throughout your life that can cause significant distress if they persist. Thankfully, the functional medicine approach can address many of the most common women's health conditions.
At Melbourne Functional Medicine, we assess your health thoroughly to pinpoint the underlying factors contributing to your health concerns, then give you a personalised treatment plan, just for you. Your practitioner will explore all aspects of your health, and alongside your health coach, help you meet your health goals so you can enjoy life to the fullest. Here’s how we do it:
Your functional medicine practitioner will explore why your health issues have occurred through an in-depth health analysis in a 4-hour consultation. They may also use functional tests to explore factors often implicated in women’s health issues like:
Our goal is to discover what makes you healthy and keep you there. We do this by combining the latest scientific insights with our understanding of your health to give you a personalised blueprint for lasting health.
Making changes to your diet and lifestyle can be hard, especially when you’re feeling unwell. That's why you'll have the support of a health coach, who acts as your guide throughout your entire journey back to health.
With the ongoing support of your coach, you’ll feel empowered to achieve your goals with greater ease, and learn health skills that’ll last you a lifetime.
Our healthcare approach gets us 5-star reviews on Google. You too can achieve remarkable results that improve your health and wellbeing, and elevate your quality of life.
If you've tried and failed to solve your chronic health problem through other medical means, you understand that 'quick fixes' don't often result in long-term health gains. That's why we dedicate significant time to investigating your concerns and customising a scientifically based, results-focused program.
Your health investment includes:
6 months uncapped care
Dedicated Functional Medicine Practitioner
Dedicated Health Coach
4 hour initial consult
World's best pathology testing*
Personalised resources
Payment plans and telehealth available.
*Lab and supplement costs additional
For international patients, the program extends to 7 months at $7800. See our FAQs for more info.
Feel confident and safe in moving forward with us: Book your initial four-hour consultation ($980) to see how we work. If you feel we aren't the right fit for you after your consultation, there’s no obligation to go further with us.
Our approach is personalised, collaborative and focused on YOU. See what past patients say about our 6-month program in the video below.
Take the first step towards health now. Book a free call with one of our experts to see if we’re the right fit to partner with on your health journey.
Browse our FAQs by category below.
Yes, we work with patients across the globe via telehealth. However, as managing international logistics as well as labs and supplements in local countries requires more time, and often time delays, how we deliver our program is a little different. Therefore, for international patients, the program duration extends from 6 to 7 months, with a program fee of $7800. This allows us to maintain the same high level of care that we provide our local patients.
One of our functional medicine practitioners, Rebecca Hughes, works remotely and has achieved great results through telehealth consultations.
Functional medicine is a revolutionary healthcare approach that addresses chronic health issues. Research now shows that health issues are influenced mainly by your diet, lifestyle and environment. Functional medicine also acknowledges that each person is biochemically unique and that solving a health problem starts with finding the cause of the problem. Therefore, the resolution of health issues requires a root-cause based, personalised approach.
Functional medicine practitioners seek to understand you and your health picture, as well as your diet and lifestyle. When all of these elements are brought together and assessed, we can start to build a clear picture of what’s going on and why. This assessment can often involve functional pathology testing to dig more deeply into your health. Once insights become clear, your functional medicine practitioner will create a personalised treatment plan to solve the root cause and contributing factors to your health concerns. The outcome is that your health can be restored.
Around 80% of people fail to achieve their health goals. This is because our habits around health are hardwired into us, making it difficult to change (which is why it’s so easy to reach for that bar of chocolate without thinking). Often, when it comes to food in particular, there’s an underlying emotional connection that needs to be addressed before lasting change can occur. Health coaches understand the science of behavioural change, so they will help you navigate change with clarity and ease.
Health coaches intimately understand the challenges that come with getting your health back, often overcoming them themselves, so they will be your sidekick, supporter and guide every step of the way. In fact, past patients often rave about the support their health coach gave them - a service they hadn’t realised existed or that they needed until they experienced it themselves. We’re confident you’ll discover that too!
Unfortunately, when it comes to chronic health issues like women's health conditions, quick fixes and magic pills rarely work. Perhaps you’ve tried conventional drugs and found that to be true.
This is because the conventional approach simply looks to suppress or manage symptoms rather than solve the issue completely. Using the functional medicine approach, your practitioner will invest a lot of time investigating your case to pinpoint what’s causing your condition or symptoms. This detective phase typically takes about 4-6 weeks, especially if pathology testing is required. During this time, you’ll be implementing some small steps, possibly experimenting with food or your lifestyle, and gathering more data that will help your practitioner form a clearer picture of what’s going on with you and your health.
The implementation stage typically involves implementing steps bit by bit over several months so that you can make sustainable, simple changes. Much of your success lies in making the changes required to support your body back to good health. Using our understanding of behavioural change, we know that implementing changes in small steps is the recipe for long-term success.
We’ll be here as long as you need us. At the end of the 6-month program, we simply transition to a more customary pay per session model. Each 45-minute session with your practitioner will be $198, and 1-hour calls with your health coach will be $148. Your Slack channel (our main communication platform) will stay open for your general queries and needs.
Your practitioner will be in full detective mode to understand all the pieces of your health puzzle and get to the root of your problem. This involves understanding your health history, your diet, lifestyle and other factors like existing test results to start joining the dots on your health.
During this time, you’ll be able to ask as many questions as you like about your health. If you have a list of questions you’ve had unanswered for some time, bring them along! Your practitioner will help clarify what’s going on with your health and explain things in simple terms versus technical jargon.
Towards the end of the session, your practitioner will formulate a health plan alongside you to tackle your health issues. Following that, your health coach will join the session, and you’ll brief them on what you’ve learned so far and share the treatment plan that you designed with your practitioner.
Your health coach will organise any supplements and testing for you and will schedule your first coaching appointment, so together, you can work out the practical steps to take in your treatment plan.
You’ll walk away from the session with some insight into what could be causing your condition. You’ll also likely feel a sense of hope and excitement about the possibilities of having your health back on track!
Follow-up consultations are typically 30 minutes. Each session will consider the effectiveness of any interventions implemented and will seek to gain further insight into your women's health condition or explore other issues that need addressing.
The duration of your coaching calls will differ depending on how you are doing! At the start, coaching sessions tend to be longer and more intensive as you’re in a learning and growth phase.
As you progress through your program, sessions are typically a weekly 15–30-minute call along with more frequent contact via Slack - an app that you can access on your phone or desktop for quick and easy communication. Your health coach will be in touch regularly to give you as much support as you require to meet your goals!
As chronic diseases are caused by dietary, lifestyle and environmental factors, the short answer is yes. So if you’re considering working with us, you must be committed to doing what’s needed to get the results you desire. We give you insights into why change would benefit you and how some of these factors are impacting your health negatively, so you’ll be armed with insights and motivation to change. In this way, change will be a gift rather than a hindrance as you’ll feel so much better because of it.
After supporting hundreds of patients through this program, we know that the one thing that sets us apart from other women’s health clinics and women’s health naturopaths is our unique approach. First, our functional medicine women’s health practitioners Rebecca Hughes and Vicki van der Meer have a broad range of knowledge about women's health conditions. By using the methodical and thorough functional medicine approach, they leave no stone unturned when finding the root cause of your health concerns.
When you add health coaching into the equation, your chances of success increase greatly because you’ll have someone walking with you step by step through all the challenges that often stop people from getting better.
That said, you do have to be prepared and willing to do what’s needed to get your health back, which usually involves changes to your diet and lifestyle.
Working remotely with Rebecca is a convenient way to receive personalised functional medicine care for your women's health concerns. At your initial consultation, Rebecca will conduct a thorough assessment remotely, taking into consideration your medical history, lifestyle, and other factors that may be contributing to your health issues.
During your consultation, you'll have the opportunity to discuss any concerns in detail with Rebecca. She will ask you questions about your symptoms, medical history, and lifestyle, as well as review any relevant medical records or test results you may have. With this information, Rebecca can develop a comprehensive plan to address the underlying factors contributing to your health concerns.
Rebecca may use a range of tech to further enhance your experience such as video calls and other online tools.
A deposit of $870 is required upon booking, and the remaining balance ($4930) is to be paid at your initial consultation or paid monthly over six months, with our payment partners.
To find out more about payment solutions download our resource here.
Any supplements or lab testing will incur additional fees.
All contact with your practitioner and coach are included in the program fee. Other costs you can potentially expect are for laboratory tests and supplements. Your practitioner will discuss the costs for any tests or supplements they recommend in your sessions.
Unfortunately, as of April 1, 2019, most private health insurers won’t offer rebates for our services.
Most of the testing we do seeks to understand how pathways or systems in the body function. These tests are typically more in-depth and comprehensive than you would’ve encountered before.
We sometimes request standard blood chemistry from your GP for more basic tests, and if we need to go more in-depth, such as looking at microbiome health or food sensitivities, we use the world’s leading labs:
Precision Analytical
Genova Diagnostics
KBMO
NutriPath
Metametrix
Mosaic Diagnostics
Bioceuticals for DNA testing
Many of these labs are overseas, so test results can take a few weeks to come back.
Unfortunately, Medicare only pays for standard tests, conventional medical tests, many of which we find don’t give a clear enough window into your health. The tests we order are different from conventional tests you’ve likely experienced and found to be unhelpful before finding us.
GPs, unless they are functional medicine trained, are only trained in interpreting standard tests that look for pathologies (disease) rather than looking purely at assessing the function of pathways or systems. The functional pathology tests that we use can identify pre-disease states and look at other determining factors that contribute to women's health conditions and diseases.
Learning about and interpreting the latest functional pathology tests takes years of functional medicine training and involves continued education as new scientific insights arise.
Given these labs are privately billed, we seek to balance the need for more data on your health with a desire to look after your wallet. Therefore, the amount of lab tests we do varies by individual. Typically, when we ask a patient to invest in testing of this nature, the cost is worth the investment as we uncover insights that inform their recovery.
Our clinic hours are:
9:00am – 5:00pm Monday to Thursday
However, you can reach us outside of those hours via phone or email.
Our women’s health clinic is located in Melbourne at 186 Buckhurst Street, South Melbourne.
If you're in Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, Sydney, or elsewhere in Australia, and are looking for a women’s health naturopath or a women’s health specialist to treat your women’s health condition remotely, telehealth appointments are available.
Vicki van der Meer, one of our functional medicine women's health specialists, is available for in-person consultations at our South Melbourne clinic and for telehealth appointments Australia-wide. Rebecca Hughes, our other functional medicine women's health specialist, works remotely via telehealth from her clinic in Perth.
Yes, our functional medicine women’s health specialists have extensive experience working successfully with patients across Australia and around the world via telehealth.
Phone or video consultations are available. Simply let us know when you’re booking in, and we’ll organise that for you.
Can’t find what you’re looking for? Reach out to the team directly – we’ll be happy to assist.
