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To do that, click the image below.

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What is a Lead Safe Mama “Healthy Home Consultation”?

First we want to clarify what it is not.

• A Lead Safe Mama healthy home consultation is not a  “Hazard Assessment“.
• We are not associated with a hazard assessor or laboratory – and do not claim to be.
• We do not provide an official report or written summary with our work.
• This work is also not medical advice; I am not a doctor or healthcare provider,  and we do not work directly with anyone in the medical professions (although it can be complementary to your work with your doctor — especially if you have tested positive for metals in your blood, urine or hair).

What it is: It’s more of a personalized educational experience!

Think of your Lead Safe Mama healthy home consultation as a one-on-one class; an educational opportunity tailored just for you and your family, during which we look at your environment (your home, your consumer goods and how you interact with those things each day) to find potential sources of heavy metal exposure for yourself or other members of your family and to suggest safer alternatives for items of concern. In Lead Safe Mama home consultations, we often look for sources of the following metals in your environment: Arsenic, Cadmium, Lead, Mercury, Antimony, Cobalt, Barium, Tin, Nickel, and many other metals about which you may have concerns.

You are not alone in taking this “class”!

In fact, State health departments, universities (including Stanford University, MIT, OHSU, PSU and others), hospitals (Dartmouth Hospital, American Family Hospital), and other agencies across the country (including EPA HQ offices!) have had Tamara Rubin come teach classes, present via speaking engagements or coordinate and lead collaborative community educational presentations. Through attending many of these presentations, attendees (including doctors, nurses, teachers, contractors and others) often get continuing education credits (CEUs) from their local relevant state agency (for example their local health department) for attending these events, and participating in this conversation. This is your opportunity for a class like this — but one that is 100% tailored to your individual needs / to answer your questions – and to look for safer choices for your family.

If you have not yet had a heavy metals urine, blood, or hair test done by your doctor, these tests can be useful tools to have on hand for our visit – and we do encourage our families to ask their doctors if a heavy metals panel would be appropriate in their particular situation. Heavy metals panels often are presented as a bar graph, and if there are specific metals that you test positive for (at unsafe levels, as determined by your doctor), we can be on the lookout for sources of those specific metals in your environment.

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Published Thursday – October 21, 2021
Updated: Monday – January 8, 2024
Rates subject to change

Check out the links below for more info!

1. Tamara’s background, and home consultations & outreach events rates
2. Phone & Zoom consultations 
3. Contribute in support of the work
4. Home Consultations overview post
5. Community Events overview post

Not all events and consultations involve XRF testing, however for those that do here are some additional links with more information:

1. Testing Methodologies used in this work.
2. How many items can be tested during an hour?
3. Items one might want to have tested with an XRF instrument.

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Rates & How it works

1. How long is a Home Consultation?:
   • Most Home Consultations last 3 to 4 hours.
   • We have a maximum time for a consultation of 4 hours.
   • If you have a home larger than 2,500 square feet OR if you own a lot of things that need to be tested (more than an average person), you may require two consultations, done across two days (with a maximum of four hours each).
2. How much does it cost?:
   • The 2024 rate for Home Consultations in Oregon starts at $2,000 for a 3-to-4 hour consultation. Most families find that 3-to-4 hours is the optimal length of a home consultation to make sure all bases are covered and all questions are answered.
   • NOTE: Rates for small Community Events and large Public Speaking Events start at $3,500 in Oregon and vary, depending on the scope and complexity of the events, and are discussed in detail on this link.
3. Additional rate considerations:
   • the following rates apply for Home Consultations within the State of Oregon 
     • within a 1-hour drive of downtown Portland: $2,000 (flat fee; 3 to 4 hour consultation)
     • within a 2-hour drive, $2,500 (flat fee; 3 to 4 hour consultation)
     • within a 3-hour drive: $3,000 (flat fee; 3 to 4 hour consultation)
     • with more than 3-hours of driving each way, separate travel fees apply
       

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4. Reserve your home consultation date.
   • To book a Lead Safe Mama Healthy Home Consultation, a 50% deposit for your total anticipated fee is due up-front, to reserve a tentative date. For large community events costs, deposits and timelines are different.
5. How much of a deposit do I have to pay?
   • Your 50% deposit (for a home consultation in Oregon) starts at $1,000.00.
6. What methods of payment do you accept?
   • We accept Venmo, PayPal, Zelle or credit card payments processed through PayPal. All payment methods are tracked as income to Lead Safe Mama, LLC – a Portland, Oregon based, woman-owned, small business.
     • Venmo: @TamaraERubin
     • Zelle: 503-702-2708
   • Please let us know if you need an invoice.
7. What if I need to cancel?
   • Deposits are fully refundable (with certain time restrictions, per the refund policy, linked on the bottom of each page of the website) if your consultation is canceled for any reason. Here’s the refund policy link.
8. Do you charge for travel?
   • Besides the fee schedule noted above (which accommodates travel costs [rental cars; hotels; opportunity costs for additional time with travel]), there is normally no additional/separate charge for travel costs for consultations within the State of Oregon! [Exceptions to this are noted on this link.] 
9. Finalize your date.
   • To finalize your date, the remaining 50% of your home consultation or small event fee is due no later than one month prior to your scheduled date.
   • Upon payment of your remaining 50%, we will finalize the date with you – as well as a time-window for your appointment.
   • If you need a firm date earlier (if two weeks in advance to confirm the final date and time-window is not enough notice for your schedule), feel free to pay your remaining 50% at any time, and we will finalize the date at that time.

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“But this is so expensive!”

While we understand the cost may seem out of reach for many families, at this time the advocacy work of Lead Safe Mama, LLC is not yet profitable, and we cannot afford to subsidize the costs any more than we already do. We anticipate reaching reasonable profitability after our Federal Civil Rights legal battle is over – at which point we do hope to be able to further subsidize work for lower-income families, as we have always done whenever possible.

For the present, if you cannot afford a one-on-one consultation, but are interested in participating in the work, this website is a free available resource (with thousands of pages of information), and you may also want to keep your eyes open (sign up for our newsletter here) for Lead Safe Mama public Community Events in your area, normally sponsored by (and hosted by) local health departments, educational institutions, hospitals, etc. with participation for the public offered free of charge.  

If you want to discuss the possibility of your local or health department (or hospital, or college) sponsoring a free public event, please be in touch. Here’s an overview of elements that might be included in those events: link.