Our team · Lakewood Ranch, FL
The Clinicians Behind Your IV Therapy in Lakewood Ranch
Three people, all named, all licensed, and all lookupable. In a category where ‘our medical team’ usually means nobody in particular, that is the part worth comparing.
Treatments provided by Ultimate IV and Wellness · 7262 55th Avenue E, Bradenton, FL 34203
- Board-certified medical director
- Two registered nurses
- Florida-licensed
- Critical care and surgical backgrounds
- Every name published
Named clinicians
Three
Medical director
Board-certified since 2016
Combined nursing experience
Decades, not months
The Physician Who Approves the Protocols
Dr Stephen Jones, MD is the medical director of the practice and a board-certified general surgeon. He reviews and approves every protocol on this menu, sets the exclusion criteria the nurses screen you against, and takes any case that falls outside them.
He is not usually the person in the room during a routine infusion, and that is by design rather than by omission. The clinician who treats you is a registered nurse, which is the appropriate clinician for administering an infusion. What the physician determines is what is on the menu at all, and who may safely receive it.
That distinction is the substance of physician oversight, and it is worth understanding before you judge any clinic in this category by whether a doctor happens to greet you at the door.
The Team
Three clinicians, with the training their own records show and nothing added.
01
Stephen Jones, MD — Medical Director
Board-certified general surgeon since 2016. BSc from Youngstown State University in 2005, medical degree from Northeast Ohio Medical University in 2010, general surgery residency at Northside Medical Center, and an advanced gastrointestinal and bariatric surgery fellowship at The Valley Hospital and the Mount Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Center. He approves every protocol on the menu.
02
Erica Barshay, RN BSN — Founder and Lead Nurse
Florida-licensed, with more than seventeen years in healthcare and around twenty in the field. Gastroenterology nursing in New York, hospital critical care in Brooklyn, and home care management. Her specialisms are IV therapy, vitamin injections, peptides and medical weight loss.
03
Christy Lippmann, RN BSN
BSN from the University of Miami, with a notably broad clinical background — wellness, functional medicine, urgent care, interventional cardiology, paediatrics and primary care.
04
What they have in common
Every one of them came from hospital, urgent care or surgical nursing rather than from a wellness background. That matters on the days when something does not go to plan, which is the only day the staffing model is really being tested.
What Each Role Actually Does
The division of responsibility, which is usually invisible from outside and is the whole substance of physician oversight.
The medical director approves the protocol
Every drip and injection on the menu exists because a physician reviewed and approved the formulation, the indications and the exclusions. That approval is what allows a nurse to administer it without a per-patient prescription, and it is what makes prescription items like Toradol and Zofran possible on the menu at all.
The nurse screens and administers
Your history, medications, allergies and relevant conditions are reviewed by the registered nurse against those protocols before anything is prepared. The nurse places the line, runs the infusion, adjusts the rate and stays with you. Most of the clinical judgment you experience is theirs.
Either can say no
A nurse can decline a treatment on screening grounds without escalating, and does. Where a case is borderline it goes to the physician. The system is designed so that the easy answer is caution — which is the opposite of how a sales-led clinic is set up.
Training and Background at a Glance
Everything below is published by the practice and independently checkable by name.
Clinician
Background
Stephen Jones, MD
Board-certified general surgeon (2016) · Northeast Ohio Medical University · Northside Medical Center residency · GI and bariatric fellowship, The Valley Hospital / Mount Sinai
Erica Barshay, RN BSN
17+ years healthcare · gastroenterology nursing · hospital critical care · home care management · IV therapy, injections, peptides, medical weight loss
Christy Lippmann, RN BSN
University of Miami · wellness and functional medicine · urgent care · interventional cardiology · paediatrics · primary care
We do not publish individual license numbers. Every clinician above is Florida-licensed and verifiable by name through the Florida Department of Health license portal, and we would rather point you there than print a number you have no way to check against.
“Ask who is putting the line in, and what they did before they worked in wellness. The answer tells you most of what you need to know.”
The question worth asking any IV clinic
A Named Team or a Medical Director on Paper?
Both appear on websites in almost identical language. They are not the same thing.
Genuine oversight looks like
A physician you can name and verify, who has reviewed the protocols on the menu. Nurses with clinical backgrounds, named on the site. A screening process that produces actual refusals. Someone reachable when a nurse has a question mid-infusion.
Oversight in name only looks like
A medical director listed once in a footer and never again. No clinician names anywhere. A physician licensed in another state entirely. Protocols bought in as a package. If you cannot find a name, there may not be one — and if you can find one but no credentials, that is worth a moment’s thought too.
Why Hospital and Urgent Care Backgrounds Matter Here
On an ordinary day, an infusion appointment does not require critical care experience. Someone places a line, the drip runs, you leave. The staffing model is not being tested and almost any competent person could run the room.
It is tested on the other days. A vasovagal faint during a blood draw. A rate that needs adjusting because someone is feeling chest tightness on NAD+. Difficult venous access in a patient who is significantly dehydrated — which is common, because dehydration is frequently why they called. An unexpected reaction that needs recognizing quickly and acting on faster.
Those are ordinary events in an emergency department and unusual ones in a wellness setting, and the difference between handling them calmly and handling them badly is almost entirely prior exposure. Every nurse here came from hospital, surgical or urgent care nursing. That is not an accident of hiring and it is the single best argument for the price difference between an infusion practice and a drip bar.
How to Verify Any of This Yourself
Three steps, all free, and worth doing for any clinic you are considering — including this one.
01
Search the license portal
The Florida Department of Health runs a public license verification search. Enter a clinician’s name and you will see the license type, status and any disciplinary history. It takes under a minute per name.
02
Check the physician's board certification
Board certification is separate from licensure and is verifiable through the certifying board. ‘Board-certified’ is a specific claim rather than a general compliment, and it can be checked.
03
Ask who will actually treat you
Names on a website are a start; the person in the room is the point. It is entirely reasonable to ask which clinician is assigned to your appointment, and a clinic that finds the question awkward has answered it.
One Team, Clinic and Mobile
The nurse who arrives at your door in Lakewood Ranch is one of the two registered nurses above. There is no separate mobile roster, no contractor pool and no agency staffing — the mobile service is the same team, working the same protocols, away from the building.
That is worth stating because it is genuinely not the norm. Mobile IV is an easy service to subcontract, and plenty of operators do, which is why ‘who exactly is coming, and what license do they hold’ is on our list of questions to ask any provider. We would rather answer it than be asked it.
It also explains something about scheduling. Because the same clinicians cover both, the earliest slot for a home visit is often later than the earliest slot in the clinic. A nurse cannot be in Parrish and in Bradenton at once, and we would rather give you a slower honest time than a quicker one we miss.
What the Team Can and Cannot Do for You
Clinical scope, stated plainly, because it is easy to assume a clinic does more than it does.
Within scope
Screening you against approved protocols, administering infusions and injections, adjusting a treatment to how you are tolerating it, recognizing and managing a reaction, and telling you when a treatment is not appropriate. Ordering and interpreting the bloodwork that iron infusion and testosterone therapy require.
Outside scope
Diagnosing the cause of a symptom. Managing a chronic condition. Replacing the physician who is already treating you. If your fatigue, your headaches or your recurring illness need a diagnosis, the right outcome of your call to us is a recommendation to see someone who can make one — and that is a common outcome rather than a rare one.
Why We Publish Every Name
It is the easiest quality check you can run on an IV clinic, and it takes about two minutes.
Find the clinicians’ names. Then check them against the Florida Department of Health license verification portal, which is public, free and searchable by name. If a clinic will not tell you who is treating you or who approved the protocol, you have learned something before you have spent anything.
Everyone on this page is named for exactly that reason. We do not publish individual license numbers — that is a gap we acknowledge on the about page rather than paper over — but the names and credentials here are enough to verify every one of them independently.
The Standard Behind Every Appointment
Every protocol is approved by our medical director and every infusion is given by a Florida-licensed registered nurse who reviews your history first. That is true in the clinic, and it is true in your living room.
If you want to understand what that structure is actually protecting you from, the medical oversight pages set it out in full — including the contraindications, the side effects and the cases where we decline.
Medical director: Dr Stephen Jones — board-certified general surgeon since 2016, Northeast Ohio Medical University. Founder and lead nurse: Erica Barshay, RN BSN.
What Treatments Cost
Every drip and injection is published with its price, along with all five membership tiers. The clinician who treats you does not change the price.
Health insurance does not cover elective IV therapy. HSA and FSA cards are accepted.
Questions About Our Team
Florida-licensed registered nurses — Erica Barshay and Christy Lippmann — working to protocols approved by our medical director, Dr Stephen Jones.
Dr Stephen Jones, a board-certified general surgeon since 2016. He trained at Northeast Ohio Medical University, completed a general surgery residency at Northside Medical Center and a GI and bariatric fellowship at The Valley Hospital and Mount Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Yes, all of them, and you can verify every name through the Florida Department of Health’s public license verification portal.
Yes. There is no separate mobile roster and no contractor pool — the mobile service is the same two registered nurses working the same protocols.
It is a gap we acknowledge rather than explain away. Every clinician is verifiable by name through the state portal, and we would rather point you at the authoritative source than print a number on a page.
You can ask, and we will do what the schedule allows. It comes up most often for patients with difficult venous access who have had a good experience with someone particular, which is a perfectly reasonable request.
Not usually, and that is by design rather than by omission. The physician’s role is approving the protocols and handling the cases a nurse escalates. For a standard infusion, your clinician is the registered nurse.
One of the registered nurses — most often Erica Barshay, the founder and lead nurse, who is the clinician most patients see. She or a colleague screens you, places the line, runs the infusion and stays with you. The medical director’s work happens before your appointment, in the protocol she is screening you against.
Book
Talk to One of Our Nurses
Tell us what has been going on. A registered nurse reads it and calls you back — not a booking system, and not a salesperson.
Prefer to talk?
Call and a nurse
answers the phone.
Not a call center, not a booking bot.
What happens next
- We read it the same day
- A nurse calls you back, not a booking bot
- We check your history before anything is scheduled
Mon–Fri 8am–6pm · Sat 8am–2pm · Sun closed
Treatments provided by Ultimate IV and Wellness · 7262 55th Avenue E, Bradenton, FL 34203