Body composition analysis is a quick and easy test to measure the amount of fat, body water and muscle you have in your body. Knowing your body composition can help you pinpoint goals to maximize your health while giving you an opportunity to physically see improvements over time as you make nutrition and lifestyle changes.

To learn more, visit the InBody website and check out their body composition and testing pages.

Metabolic Testing With MetaCheck

Have you struggled to lose, gain, or even maintain weight and no matter how much or how little you eat the scale just isn’t going the direction you want it to? Many people attribute their struggles with weight to a “slow” or “fast” metabolism, but you can’t know for sure what’s going on if you don’t know how many calories your body is burning.

What is Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR)?

Metabolism is the process of converting food (calories) into energy. The efficiency with which your body does this is referred to as your metabolic rate. Many factors affect a person’s metabolic rate which makes each of us have a highly unique RMR number:

• Body size/body weight – larger bodies needs more calories to sustain life
• Age – metabolism slows with age
• Body composition – muscle burns more calories than fat
• Hormone levels – conditions of the thyroid may affect your metabolism
• Gender – men typically have faster metabolisms because they’re generally larger
• Genetics – research suggests your genes may play a role in your metabolism
• Physical activity – exercise increases muscle mass and helps your body burn calories faster
• Chronic diseases – any disease that makes it harder for the body to function (lung or kidney disease)

To learn more, take a look at this Metabolic Rate Testing handout

What is Metabolic Testing?

A metabolic test shows how many calories you burn each day and includes your RMR + Lifestyle + Exercise. Metabolic Testing is a useful tool to understand your body’s unique nutritional needs in order to determine a precise caloric prescription to help you achieve your goals; whether it be to lose, maintain, or gain weight.

Why Test Your Metabolic Rate?

• RMR shows you precisely how many calories your body actually burns each day.
• Identifying your RMR allows us to establish a unique caloric target that includes your RMR plus lifestyle and exercise to help you reach your weight goals.
• Screening for a slowed metabolism can explain frustrating attempts to lose weight and reveal changes in your metabolism to help troubleshoot plateaus

Who Should Test Metabolic Rate?

Those struggling with weight gain, loss or maintenance should check their metabolism, as well as those who wonder ”is it slow?”, ”is it fast?”, or ”what do I burn?”

How Does the Test Work?

Every calorie a person consumes requires a fixed amount of oxygen to be converted to energy. Our KORR MetaCheck Analyzer measures the oxygen you consume to calculate the calories you burn. When you breathe into the sterile, disposable MetaBreather, your exhaled air is collected and analyzed using a one-way valve that passes through a hose into the machine. A report then prints with your unique RMR and from there we can work on creating a plan for the Energy Balance needed to achieve your specific goals.

Preparing For The Metabolic Test

Welcome and thank you for your interest in working with Advanced Nutrition Services to improve health outcomes and quality of life for your patients! As food and nutrition experts, we provide current, evidence-based Medical Nutrition Therapy (MNT) to help patients manage chronic diseases such as diabetes, overweight / obesity, lipid disorders, hypertension, CHF, kidney disease, GI disorders, food allergies, and more.

What is Medical Nutrition Therapy?

Medical Nutrition Therapy (MNT) is an evidence-based nutrition service provided by a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist aimed at preventing, delaying or managing chronic disease. MNT is an effective disease management tool as it reduces chronic disease risk, slows disease progression, lessens symptoms and is a cost-effective way to increase patient satisfaction.

Why work with a Registered Dietitian?

Adding an RDN to your team is good medicine! RDNs work hand-in-hand with referring Physicians to deliver coordinated, cost-effective care. Your time is limited and behavior change can be a long process so let us help your patients improve their health and quality of life by providing referrals for medical nutrition therapy. Here’s a short read on the benefits of adding an RDN to your practice.

RDNs and PCPs: A Healthy Partnership for Primary Care

How to work with with us

Direct Referrals

We can work with your patients through direct referrals to our practice in Northeast Albuquerque, where we provide nutrition counseling, medical nutrition therapy, indirect calorimetry, bioelectrical impedance analysis and more. With direct referrals, you fill out our MNT Referral Form and fax it to the office at (855)951-4406 or give us a call at (505)308-4797 to request an electronic MNT Referral Form through our HIPAA compliant EMR system. We can also meet with your patients through our Telehealth platform for those who are unable visit us in person.

Integrated Nutrition Services

In addition to direct referrals, we can work with patients in your office as a contract provider using the dietitians NPI number for MNT (Medicare) billing or we can work with patients as auxiliary personnel or non-physician practitioners (NPP) incident to the physician for MNT (Private Payers) as well as Intensive Behavioral Therapy for Obesity (IBT) under Medicare Part B. Incident to billing for services allows us to provide nutrition counseling at your facility, under your direct supervision, and is billed using the physicians NPI number.

As a contract provider, we are able to offer flexible scheduling with half-day or full-day schedules on a daily, weekly or monthly basis for maximum convenience.

Possible Workflow Ideas

• Schedule RDN appointments same day as physician appointment
• Case management / care coordination
• Planned care for chronic conditions / multiple chronic conditions
• Group nutrition visits

Are RDN services covered?

For Direct Referrals (services provided in our office), we provide Nutrition Counseling and MNT as authorized and contracted with Medicare using our own credentialing number. We are currently contracted with Medicare, Presbyterian Health Plans, Blue Cross Blue Shield, United Healthcare, Cigna and others are being added as we are able. We also offer Superbills for your patient’s to seek direct reimbursement for our services and we accept HSA and FSA’s with a Letter of Medical Necessity.

What can your patients expect?

Initial Consultations are 60-minute appointments where we evaluate information such as the patients food and nutrition-related history, biochemical data, medical tests and procedures, anthropometric measurements, nutrition-focused physical findings and patient history. From there, we write a diagnostic statement based on our evaluation that contains a Problem, Etiology, and Signs/Symptoms (PES). We then determine a nutrition intervention and goals of care based on the needs of the patient. We always meet the patient where they are and make smart, measurable and achievable goals so they aren’t overwhelmed with too much information at once.

Follow-up Consultations are 30-minute appointments generally conducted 3-4 weeks after the initial appointment. During the follow-up visit we evaluate the progress that has been made and adjust the care plan accordingly.

With the patients consent, you will be provided with progress notes following each appointment and we can hold interdisciplinary team meetings as needed to maintain continuity of care in meeting the patients goals.

What’s next?

If you would more information or to discuss our services further, visit https://calendly.com/nmrdn/15min to schedule a brief ≤ 15 minute meeting by phone and we will be happy answer any questions you may have.

You are also welcome to call us at (505) 308-4797 or send a message through our contact page requesting a Physician Services Marketing Package and we will send it out right away.

Show me the evidence!

For more information on the effectiveness of MNT services, visit www.andevidencelibrary.com/MNT or check out the presentation below for the nitty gritty details on what the evidence says.

EAL MNT Project Presentation