Updated: September 23, 2022
Rates subject to change.
Hello California!
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 and are looking for potential sources of exposure in your daily life and routines).
What it is: It’s 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 our time together 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. [I often also go to schools and daycare centers with families to look for hazards that children might be exposed to when they are away from home.]
In most Lead Safe Mama home consultations, we use XRF technology to look for sources of the following metals in your environment:
- Arsenic,
- Cadmium,
- Lead,
- Mercury,
- Antimony,
- Cobalt,
- Barium,
- Tin,
- Nickel,
- & many other metals about which you may have concerns.
You are not alone in taking this “class”!
In fact, State health departments, universities, hospitals, and other agencies across the country (including EPA offices!) have hired Tamara Rubin to coordinate and to lead collaborative community educational presentations for which 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. [Please read this post which discusses this type of testing in more detail.]
How do you know if Tamara will be in your area during an upcoming travel month?
- Regular Lead Safe Mama travel months are January, April and October of each year.
- Tamara makes additional trips to California (from Oregon) 5 or 6 times a year each year.
- Tamara is also available to come to California fairly last minute if your situation is more urgent and you prefer not to wait for a pre-planned trip.
If you are among the first to book a consultation during January, April or October (when the schedule is announced – normally about three months in advance of the travel dates), we will build the travel schedule around your visit no matter where you are… so “YES!” We CAN be in your area during one of those months (anywhere in California.)
By planning trips in advance and clustering home consultations (geographically and temporally) we are able to keep costs down for families. For California residents we will publish additional availability (additional pre-planned trips) on this post as they are scheduled (you may want to bookmark the page and check back periodically for updates).
Check out the links below for more info!
- Tamara’s background, and home consultations & outreach events rates
- Phone & Zoom consultations
- Contribute in support of the work
- Home Consultations overview post
- 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:
- Testing Methodologies used in this work.
- How many items can be tested during an hour?
- Items one might want to have tested with an XRF instrument.
How it works
- How long is a Home Consultation?:
- Home consultations range in length from 3 to 4 hours.
- We currently have a three-hour minimum (because that’s how long it takes to really thoroughly review things in your home and how you interact with them), and a four-hour maximum for Home Consultations.
- How much does it cost?:
- The 2022/2023 rate for a Lead Safe Mama Home Consultation in California is $2,000 (in most locations in California) for times when we already have a trip schedule to the area. This is a flat-fee for a 3 to 4 hour consultation.
- If we are not going to be in the area already and need to travel from Portland, Oregon to California to specifically see you, there is also a Travel Day fee of $1,500 – which includes all of our travel fees to and from your destination. [Bringing the total cost for an emergency or last-minute one-on-one consultation with Tamara to $3,500.]
- If we are traveling to see you from another location in the United States (not from Oregon), two travel days may be required (for example if we are located on the East Coast during the time when you would like to schedule a California consultation). The per-day travel fee is $1,500 in that case – and so the travel fee for your consultation would be $3,000.
- NOTE: Rates for small Community Events and large Public Speaking Events vary, depending on the scope and complexity of the events, and are discussed in detail on this link.
- 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.
- How much of a deposit do I have to pay?
- Your 50% deposit (to reserve a date for a 3 to 4-hour home consultation in California – depending on the timing) will be $1,000.00 or $1,750.00 (in most cases, depending on travel days required.)
- Finalize your date.
- To finalize your date, the remaining 50% of your home consultation or small event fee is due no later than 30-days 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 30-days 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.
- 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
- PayPal: TamaraRubin@mac.com
- Please let us know if you need an invoice.
- 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.
- What if I need to cancel?
- Deposits are fully refundable (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.
- 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]), with advance booking there is normally no additional/separate charge for travel costs for consultations during pre-set travel months of January, April and October each year!
“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 in 2023 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 (TamaraRubin.com / LeadSafeMama.com) 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.
Leave a Reply