Inside Arbour Longevity: How a Clinician-Led Practice Actually Runs

The short version. Arbour Longevity is a small, clinician-led medical practice rather than a walk-in med spa. The same clinician who reads your labs writes your plan and performs your procedures. Care runs as a loop — test, treat, retest, adjust — not as a menu of one-off appointments. That model has real trade-offs, and they are set out below alongside the advantages.

Who Actually Designs Your Plan

In many practices, the person who sells you the plan, the person who writes it, and the person who performs the treatment are three different people. Here they are one person.

Gandhi Bhattarai is a triple board certified nurse practitioner — Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP-BC), Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP-BC), and board certified in Anti-Aging and Functional Medicine. She also owns the practice, which is the part that changes the incentives: there is no corporate quota above her deciding what gets recommended.

The psychiatric certification is the one people underestimate. A great deal of what brings patients in — flat mood, broken sleep, brain fog, a changed relationship with their own body — sits exactly where hormonal, metabolic and mental health overlap. Being able to hold all three in one appointment, rather than referring the third one out, is the practical reason the combination matters.

What the First Visit Covers, and What It Costs

The new-patient consultation is $35, and it applies toward your treatment plan if you move forward.

It is a history-taking visit more than a sales visit. We work through how your energy, sleep, recovery, focus, body composition and libido have changed over the past five to ten years, what you have already tried, what your previous labs showed, and what you actually want out of this — which is often narrower and more specific than "feel better".

Most people leave with lab orders and a provisional roadmap rather than a finished protocol, because writing a protocol before seeing data is guesswork with a confident tone. Results typically return within about a week, and the plan gets built at the follow-up against real numbers.

You will also get a straight answer if we do not think a treatment is right for you. That is not a marketing line; it is the only way a small practice survives on results rather than volume.

The Monitoring Loop: What Happens Between Visits

This is the structural difference between a longevity practice and a treatment counter, and it is worth being concrete about.

Hormone, peptide and metabolic protocols are not set-and-forget. Labs are rechecked at planned intervals rather than only when something feels wrong — typically in the first few months after starting or changing a protocol, then on a longer cycle once you are stable. Doses are adjusted against how you are actually responding, in both the numbers and the symptoms, since the two do not always move together.

Telehealth follow-ups are available for Michigan residents, which is what makes the cadence realistic for people who are not going to drive across the county every eight weeks.

The honest trade-off: this model asks more of you than a single appointment does. If what you want is one treatment and no follow-up, we are probably not the right fit, and it is better to know that at the start.

How Membership Works, and Who It Is Not For

Memberships exist to make ongoing care predictable rather than transactional. Silver is $199/month, Gold is $399/month, and VIP/Platinum is $799/month, each building an ongoing care plan with member pricing attached.

Membership makes sense if you are running a protocol that needs regular monitoring and adjustment. It does not make sense if you are coming in for a single aesthetic treatment, and we will say so rather than sell you a tier you will not use.

We are a self-pay practice. Pricing is published rather than quoted only behind a consultation, there are no flash sales, and we accept HSA and FSA cards, all major credit cards, and Klarna and Affirm financing.

What Is Available Under One Roof

• Hormone optimization: BHRT, TRT, pellet therapy and thyroid support, using bioidentical hormones rather than synthetic ones. See our guide to bioidentical hormone therapy.
• Peptide therapy: recovery, weight, sexual wellness and cognitive support.
• Medical weight loss: GLP-1 therapy with clinician supervision, monitoring and coaching.
• Sexual wellness: the P-Shot, O-Shot, shockwave therapy and vaginal rejuvenation, handled with the same seriousness as any other health issue rather than as an awkward add-on.
• Regenerative medicine: PRP for hair, skin and joints. Where exosome preparations are used, they are topical only — applied to the skin surface, never injected. These are investigational Phase 2 research preparations, not an approved or proven treatment, and we describe them that way in the room too.
• Plasma soft surgery: Plexr Plus, an FDA-cleared plasma device, for non-surgical eyelid, neck and face work, scar and stretch-mark treatment, without cuts or general anesthesia.
• Aesthetics: Botox, fillers, PDO thread lifts and microneedling.
• IV nutrient therapy: Myers' Cocktail, NAD+, vitamin C and hydration drips.

What We Deliberately Do Not Do

Knowing what a practice refuses to do is usually more informative than its service list.

• We do not prescribe hormones without labs. Not as a policy preference — there is no way to dose correctly without the data.
• We do not use cookie-cutter dosing. The same protocol for every patient is a scheduling convenience, not medicine.
• We do not sell large upfront packages or long lock-in contracts.
• We do not use proprietary blends with undisclosed ingredients. You should always be able to find out the brand, dose and source of what you are given.
• We do not overstate what a treatment can do. Where evidence is early, we say it is early.

What I See in Clinic

Many patients arrive after bouncing between a med spa that sold them a drip and a primary care office that ran one basic panel and said everything looked fine. They are not confused about what they want. They want one place that looks at the whole picture, runs the right tests, and follows up. That gap — between quick cosmetic fixes and rushed fifteen-minute primary care — is exactly the space this practice was built to fill.

The second thing I see: people are far more willing to stick with a protocol when they understand why each number is being measured. Explanation is not a courtesy in this work. It is what makes adherence possible.

Getting Here, and What to Expect on Arrival

We are at 2217 Packard St #15, Ann Arbor, MI 48104, open Thursday through Monday, 10am to 7pm, closed Tuesday and Wednesday.

Parking is free and directly outside — no meters and no parking structure. Suite 15 is down a flight of stairs; if stairs are difficult for you, please call (734) 436-3357 before your visit so we can make arrangements.

We mainly serve Ann Arbor and the rest of Washtenaw County, including Saline, Ypsilanti, Dexter, Milan and Chelsea, and we also see patients from across Southeast Michigan. Telehealth is available for Michigan residents. Curious which patient you might be? See the 5 patient profiles I see every week.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Arbour Longevity a med spa?

No. It is a clinician-led medical practice that also offers aesthetic services. Care is designed and monitored by a licensed provider with planned follow-up. The full category distinction is in longevity clinic vs med spa.

Is this functional medicine?

Not quite, and the difference is real. Functional medicine works backward from symptoms you already have; longevity medicine works forward from testing to head off decline before symptoms appear. We do both where needed, but the emphasis is the second. See longevity medicine vs functional medicine.

Who will I actually see?

Gandhi Bhattarai, FNP-BC, PMHNP-BC, Anti-Aging/Functional Medicine BC, is the lead clinician and supervising provider, and she owns the practice. The clinician who reads your labs is the one who writes your plan.

How much is the first visit?

The new-patient consultation is $35, and it applies toward your treatment plan if you move forward.

Do you take insurance?

Arbour is a self-pay practice. We accept HSA/FSA cards, all major credit cards, and Klarna/Affirm financing.

Do I have to join a membership?

No. Membership makes ongoing, monitored care more predictable, but treatments are available without it, and we will tell you when a tier would not earn its keep for you.

What is the difference between "longevity" and "anti-aging"?

"Anti-aging" suggests fighting time. "Longevity" means helping your body work well for as long as possible. In practice that means testing, treating root causes, and tracking your health over years rather than selling one-off cosmetic fixes.

How do I know whether this practice is right for me?

If you want data before protocols, planned follow-up rather than as-needed visits, and one clinician holding the whole picture, this model fits. If you want a single treatment with no ongoing relationship, a different setting will serve you better and cost you less.

Arbour Longevity, 2217 Packard St #15, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. (734) 436-3357. Thursday through Monday, 10am to 7pm, closed Tuesday and Wednesday.

This article is educational and does not replace individualized medical advice.