Our Policies and Procedures
For your convenience we have listed our policies and procedures. Each policy will give you a detailed description of our responsibility to you as well as your responsibility as our patient. If at anytime you have questions, please feel free to ask one of our staff members for clarification.
The Day of Your Appointment
If you are a new patient to our practice, please arrive 30 minutes prior to your scheduled appointment. Upon your arrival, please check in at the front desk. At your first visit, you will be asked to do the following:
- Complete a patient registration form
- Complete a medical history form
- Present your insurance card
- Acknowledge receipt of our Notice of Privacy Practices
- Sign an authorization to release confidential health information
- Present your picture ID
If you are a returning patient, please arrive 15 minutes prior to your scheduled appointment. At your return visit, our staff will confirm your name, address, telephone numbers and your insurance information to ensure our records contain the most current information.
Late Arrivals
Late arrivals create delays for both physicians and other patients. Late arrivals may be asked to reschedule their appointments for an alternate time. Please recognize that we make every effort to see you as promptly as possible, however, emergencies may arise, delaying your scheduled appointment time. Our staff will notify you upon your arrival if a significant delay is anticipated.
Appointment Cancellations
A 24-hour notice is required for all cancellations. Please contact our office directly during normal business hours to cancel or reschedule your appointment. Note that our answering service will not take messages regarding appointment cancellations.
Although we understand that there are times when extenuating circumstances prohibit you from keeping a scheduled appointment, repeated missed appointments or cancellations with less than 24-hours notice will result in a charge billed to you. This amount cannot be billed to your insurance company.
Failure to keep scheduled appointments prohibits us from attending to and caring for you properly. Patients who miss three appointments in a 12 month period may be discharged from our practice.
Referrals
If you have an HMO or POS insurance plan, you will be required to obtain a referral prior to seeing a specialist or having certain testing done in your primary care physician's office. Referrals to specialists or for testing typically take 5-7 days for our office to process and for the insurance company or medical group to approve. Emergent referrals can be processed and approved within 24 hours. Once your referral has been approved, you will be contacted and asked to pick up your referral at our office. At your request, we can also fax your referral to the specialist office or testing facility.
In many cases, a copy of the specialist physician's office/consult notes, findings, and recommendations must accompany our referral request. As part of the referral process, our referral coordinator will contact your specialist's office to request copies of this information. If we do not receive the information within 48 business hours, we will contact you to request your assistance in obtaining the necessary documentation from the specialist to process your referral request.
Financial
Complete billing information will be provided at the time of your appointment. Those patients who do not have insurance or are unable to provide adequate billing information are responsible for the total payment of their bills.
Our billing department will bill your insurance on your behalf, however, any services that are not paid by your insurance will become your financial responsibility. Due to the number of insurance plans that we work with and the constant changes in benefit plan offerings, it is not possible for us to know all the covered benefits your specific plan covers. We ask that our patients familiarize themselves with the different benefit levels available and whether certain services are covered, specifically well adult or child care and immunizations. Please notify our front desk staff if you are aware that certain services are not covered and be prepared to make payments for that service on the day of your appointment. Patients without coverage are eligible to receive a prompt pay discount if payment is received on the day the service is rendered.