About AlphaCore Health
Root cause, not a band-aid.Functional medicine & hormone care in Nazareth, PA
Regulation, resilience, recovery — for your body and your decisions. Care built around you, not a standard template.
Why I Built AlphaCore
I was in my late thirties when I started feeling off.
Not all at once. Slowly. I was exhausted and gaining weight I couldn't explain. My libido was gone, and so was my sense of purpose. I'd come home from work and sit in the driveway before I could make myself go inside. Some days I napped for two hours just so I'd have something left for my husband.
I'd trained my whole life. I was the one who never missed a day at the gym. But when your body is running on empty, even the workouts you love become one more thing taking more than you have.
So I did what you're supposed to do. I went to my doctor, asked for labs, and described everything I was feeling. And I heard what so many women hear: "Your labs are normal. Try to get more sleep and reduce your stress."
I remember sitting in my car in the parking lot afterward, defeated. Not because the answer was hard, but because there was no answer at all.
I was in early perimenopause. Perimenopause is diagnosed mainly by symptoms, not by a single blood test. Hormone levels swing from day to day, so one "normal" result doesn't rule it out. I had been a nurse practitioner for years, and even I got dismissed. I knew it was happening to patients every single day.
Who I am
I'm Marie Perkowski, CRNP, FNP-BC · RN 21 years · NP 14 years · Functional Medicine Certified. I practice under a collaborative agreement with Dr. Ese Akinyemi, our medical director.
I've worked inside large healthcare systems, and I've felt the pressure of volume-based care firsthand: schedules built to move as many patients through as possible. Nobody sets out to fail patients. But a system that allows 12 minutes per visit can't hear a story that takes 40 minutes to tell.
AlphaCore is my answer to that. It's a small, independent practice where you see the same clinician every time: me.
My husband's story is part of this too. He has been an athlete his entire life. Somewhere along the way, recovery stopped keeping up. Soreness lingered, and energy took weeks to come back instead of days. He heard the same things I did: "Your labs are normal." "That's just getting older." We've both lived what our patients describe, and that shapes how I practice.
What you can expect
I listen first. Your first visit is a full consultation, not a checklist. Your history and your sense of your own body are real information, and I treat them that way.
I look at the whole picture. Fatigue, weight gain, low libido, and brain fog often share causes: hormones, metabolism, sleep, stress. I look at how they connect.
I test with a purpose. Standard reference ranges describe population averages, and they don't always explain how you feel. When a standard panel doesn't answer the question, I may recommend more detailed testing. I'll explain why, and you'll know the cost before anything is ordered.
I'm honest about scope. I treat what I'm trained to treat. If you need a specialist, I'll refer you. If a treatment isn't working or isn't right for you, I'll tell you and change course.
I'm here for the long term. Aging well isn't a 90-day program. The person who evaluates you is the same person who reads your labs, answers your messages, and adjusts your plan.
Why cash-pay
Insurance reimbursement pushed most primary care into a model where a provider has to see 25 to 30 patients a day to keep the doors open. Being cash-pay is what lets me build time into every visit. It also means you see prices up front, before you commit to anything.
A lesson from just up the road
In the 1960s, researchers studying Roseto, Pennsylvania, just up the road from our office here in Northampton County, found something surprising. Roseto's rate of death from heart attacks was roughly half that of neighboring towns, even though residents' diets and habits were no healthier. The difference researchers kept coming back to was community: close families, neighbors who looked out for each other, a town doctor who knew everyone. As those bonds loosened over the following decades, the advantage disappeared.
I can't recreate 1960s Roseto in a private suite in Nazareth. But I can build a practice around what mattered there: time, continuity, honesty, and being genuinely known by your clinician.
When you're ready
If you've been told you're fine when you know you're not, I'd like to hear your story. Your first 15-minute discovery call is free, via telehealth.
Why patients look for a different kind of medicine
Most people have a moment — usually somewhere in their 30s or 40s — when they realize that healthcare isn't going to save them.
Not because clinicians are bad. Not because medicine doesn't work. But because they've sat through enough 12-minute visits, been told enough times that their labs are "normal," and left enough appointments feeling like the person across the desk didn't actually see them, to realize this system was not built with them in mind.
You know the feeling.
The rush. The prescription pad. The hand on the door. The "any other concerns?" while already leaving.
The referral to a specialist who books three months out. The specialist who sends you back with a report your primary doesn't have time to read.
The dismissal, small and constant. That's just aging. That's just stress. That's just hormones. Have you tried losing weight?
The Google searches at midnight. The Reddit threads. The wellness influencers. All the places you've gone trying to figure out your own body because nobody with a medical license would give you the time to figure it out together.
You are not imagining any of this.
Well-care, not sick-care
Most of healthcare waits for something to break, then treats it — and by the time it treats it, you've already been through the referral maze: the wait, the hand-off, the report your last doctor never had time to read.
We work the other way. One clinician. One full visit, not a rushed one. Your labs, your hormones, your history reviewed before something becomes a diagnosis — not after.
It isn't faster because we cut corners. It's faster because there's no maze to navigate in the first place.
The AlphaCore Way: what we believe about your care
At AlphaCore Health, we're trying to build something different — not by attacking what exists, but by returning to what medicine was supposed to be in the first place.
We believe medicine takes as long as it takes.
Not a rushed visit. As long as you need to feel heard and understood. Your first visit is a full consult. Not because it sounds good in marketing — because that's how long it takes for a clinician to actually know you.
We believe your voice is not a nice-to-have.
Your story, your history, your instincts about your own body — these are data. We treat them that way.
We believe your symptoms are real, even when your labs are "normal."
Standard reference ranges were built for populations, not for you. If you're not feeling right, we start there — not with a dismissal.
We believe the same clinician should know you, follow you, and answer your messages.
The person who evaluates you at your first visit is the same person who reads your labs, answers your questions, and adjusts your plan. Continuity is not a luxury. It's how good medicine works.
We believe in the long game.
Not a quick fix. Not a prescription-pad reflex. We're here for the version of you that shows up ten years from now — with your energy, your mind, your body, and your quality of life still yours.
We believe in honesty about scope.
We treat what we're trained to treat. When something is outside our scope, we tell you and refer you to someone who can help. That's part of the care, not a disclaimer.
Your health. Your voice. Your plan.
We're not against anyone. We're for something — a version of medicine that remembers you're a person, that has time for your story, and that shows up for you across the long arc of your life.
If that sounds like what you've been looking for, we'd love to meet you.
When you're ready, we're here.
What we care for at AlphaCore Health
Credentials
Marie Perkowski, CRNP, FNP-BC · RN 21 years · NP 14 years · Functional Medicine Certified
Why this matters to me
Cardiothoracic care. Inner-city hospitals. Long-term care. Veterans who gave everything. Twenty-one years across nearly every corner of healthcare taught me what's lost when health and function slip away — and how much is protected when care starts before that happens. That's the work I do now.
Marie Perkowski is a Certified Registered Nurse Practitioner (CRNP), licensed by the Pennsylvania State Board of Nursing, practicing within a collaborative agreement with a Pennsylvania-licensed physician per 49 Pa. Code Ch. 21, Subch. C. Dr. Ese Akinyemi serves as medical director.
She holds a BS in Finance and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Rutgers (formerly UMDNJ) with her BSN and MSN in Family Practice. She's certified in functional medicine and facial aesthetics, has taught bachelor-level RN students at Rutgers, and currently works in long-term care and part-time with veterans.
RN 21 years · NP 14 years · Functional Medicine Certified — cardiothoracic care at Cornell in NYC, over a decade in inner-city hospitals, family and urgent care close to home. For the past 5 years, she's practiced functional medicine across the Lehigh Valley and in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.
AlphaCore Health is based in Nazareth, PA. Care is delivered exclusively by your Nurse Practitioner — no hand-off to a different provider with each refill. Your clinician works within scope, refers to specialists when appropriate, and stays connected to the broader medical community.
Adults 18+ • Cash-pay only • Care by evaluation
There are limited spaces available