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.

Well Child Visits, School Physicals and Annual Appointments

We encourage our patients to plan in advance for routine annual exams, as these can take several weeks to schedule.  Families with children are encouraged to contact our office in the spring to begin scheduling upcoming school and sports physicals to ensure that children are seen before the start of the school year.  Follow-up well child examinations should be scheduled before you leave the office to ensure that your child is seen in the appropriate time frame.

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.

Patient Financial Policy

At Rush-Copley Medical Group we make every effort to keep medical care costs down for our patients. In our effortto provide you and your family with excellent healthcare, we ask that you assist us in this process by providing timely and accurate information regarding your account. We ask each of our patients to review and sign this policy each year so as to establish the foundation of mutual understanding and expectation.

Time of Service Payment

Payment is required at the time services are rendered unless other arrangements have been made in advance. This includes applicable co-payments and coinsurance for participating insurance companies. Co-payments will not be billed to you; this payment is required prior to the medical visit. Should you arrive for a non-emergent appointment and do not have your co-pay with you, you will be asked to reschedule that visit. For your convenience we accept cash, check, debit and credit cards for payment.

Also, please be aware that patients with an outstanding balance of 60 days overdue must make arrangements for payment prior to scheduling a non-emergent appointment. Patient accounts that are over 90 days overdue are considered delinquent and may be transferred to a collection agency.

Patient Payment and Payment Arrangements

Patients who have coverage limitations or fail to provide Rush-Copley with adequate billing information, including proper managed care authorization/referrals, are responsible for the total payment of their bills. For your convenience we provide short term, as well as long-term payment plans. Any payment arrangement, other than payment in full must be approved in order to keep your account from being considered past due. If you have any questions or need to make payment arrangements to resolve your account, please call the Central Billing Office at 630-236-4338 for assistance.

Self-Pay

Patients who do not have healthcare insurance or are unable to provide satisfactory proof of insurance are required to pay 100% of the charges at the time of the visit. Payment is required at time of service; however, we do offer a 15%self-pay discount that may be applied toward certain applicable services. For clarification of what services the discount may be applied to, please ask your practice service representative.