Treatment Agreement
What you are buying
You are paying for an assessment and for the reading of your results. You are not paying for a prescription.
That sentence is the agreement. Sometimes the right outcome of an assessment is that no medicine should be prescribed, and the fee is the same either way. If our fee depended on your accepting treatment, our judgement would be for sale, and it is not.
What we undertake
- An individual assessment by a physician registered with the Colegio de Médicos y Cirujanos de Costa Rica, before anything is prescribed. This is required by law as well as by us.
- Baseline measurement. We tell you which tests we want and why, before you pay for them.
- A reading of your results in a consultation, not a PDF with a traffic light on it.
- A written record of what was discussed and decided, which you may have a copy of.
- Monitoring, at stated intervals, if treatment begins — including what would cause us to change or stop it.
- Plain disclosure of the brand, active ingredient and sanitary registration number of anything prescribed.
- Referral when your problem is outside what this clinic does or needs examining in person.
What we ask of you
- Accurate history. All medicines, including supplements and anything bought without a prescription. Omissions cause avoidable harm, particularly with interactions.
- Tell us about other doctors. We are not your only clinician, and care split between providers who do not know about each other is dangerous.
- Prepare for tests properly, and use the same laboratory for repeats.
- Attend the follow-up. A baseline without a repeat is a number, not care.
- Report side effects rather than stopping silently.
- Pay the laboratory and pharmacy directly. We do not add a margin to either.
What this clinic does not do
Stated so you are not surprised later:
- Emergencies. We are a scheduled outpatient service. In Costa Rica, call 9‑1‑1.
- Hospital or inpatient care, surgery, or anything requiring admission.
- Primary care. We do not replace a general practitioner or your CCSS doctor.
- Prescribing on request. A medicine named by you is a question to discuss, not an order to fill.
- Treating a normal result because a number is "not optimal". That is a marketing category, not a diagnosis.
- Guaranteeing outcomes. Nobody can, and anyone who does is selling something.
Fees, and what else it will cost you
Our fee covers the consultation and the clinical work around it. It does not include:
- Laboratory tests, paid to the laboratory. Costa Rican laboratory prices have a legal minimum set by the Colegio de Microbiólogos, so a quote is checkable.
- Medicines, paid to the pharmacy.
We tell you the expected cost of a panel before you commit to it. Where any commercial relationship exists between this clinic and a laboratory or pharmacy, we disclose it, and it does not change what is prescribed or how much.
If treatment begins
Where a medicine is prescribed, the following are part of the agreement rather than optional extras:
- A monitoring schedule, stated before you start.
- Stopping criteria — what result or symptom would lead us to reduce, change or stop.
- An honest account of what happens if you stop. For weight-management medicines the trial evidence shows substantial regain after withdrawal, and you will be told that before the first prescription rather than after.
- Cold chain. Where a medicine requires refrigeration, you will be told how to store and transport it. A product that has been warm is not safe to use.
Communication, and its limits
We use email and WhatsApp for scheduling and for brief clinical follow-up. Neither is a secure channel in the sense a hospital system is, and by using them you accept that. Tell us if you would rather we did not.
We do not monitor messages around the clock and we do not provide urgent advice by message.
Ending it
You may stop being our patient at any time, without explanation, and take your records with you.
We may decline to continue treating you — for instance where you need care we cannot safely provide, where a request is outside what a physician may lawfully do, or where the relationship has broken down. If that happens we will tell you why, provide your records, and where appropriate refer you.
Governing law
This agreement is governed by the law of Costa Rica. Complaints may be made to us, to the Colegio de Médicos y Cirujanos, or to the Ministry of Health.
Last updated 19 October 2026. Cura Vida Clinics Costa Rica LLC Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada.