A Naturopathic Physician is a primary care physician (licensed in over a dozen select states including Washington, Oregon, and California) who is highly educated and trained in the art and science of natural medicine. Also called Naturopathic Doctors, or ND's, these practitioners provide an incredibly vast range of care for their patients. ND's utilize the same standard of care as MD's or other primary care providers to diagnose patients, which includes obtaining a thorough patient history, physical examination, laboratory testing, and diagnostic imaging. However, ND's differ from their medical counterparts in that they have many more treatment modalities to choose from which include botanical medicine, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, physical medicine (naturopathic adjustments of the joints and soft tissue manipulation), clinical nutrition, exercise therapeutics, energy medicine, global medicine (ie; oriental or ayurvedic), counseling, and stress reduction techniques.

As simple as this may sound the biggest difference lies not in the natural treatments, but in the the model of health and disease the ND uses to understand the physiological process of healing. This holistic model represents a continuum where health does not exist merely in the absence of disease, but can be improved upon and optimized to be further and further from disease. Naturopathic Doctors follow six profound principles to help guide them in the direction of healing with their patients: first do no harm; the healing power of nature; identify and treat the cause; treat the whole person; physician as teacher; prevention.