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The Doctor’s
Assistants |
Each doctor has his
own assistant. This person will be seeing you through your entire experience
with us for continuity of care. The assistant will see you in the office,
answer your questions, precertify procedures with your insurance company,
schedule your surgery, and provide you with any other information that you
made need. The assistants do, however, follow the doctors to other clinics,
and may often be assisting the Doctor with office procedures. They are not
always at their desks to take your calls. If you need to speak with one
of them, and they are out of the office, please leave a voice mail message
and they will return your call as soon as they are able. If you require
an urgent response, speak with the receptionist and she will get your message
to the right person.
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| Appointments
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| We have appointments
available at all of our offices, Monday through Friday. Whether it is
in the morning or the afternoon depends on the schedule. Our schedule rotates
to accommodate the surgeries and procedures.
When calling for an appointment you may speak with whomever answers the
phone. We would hate to have you wait for a return call from one of the
assistants when any of us can help you with an appoinment. Please be prepared
to provide us with the name of your primary care physician and your insurance
company.
- At your appoinment, you will be given two forms to fill out.
Please be as thorough as possible, as they will help the Doctor to make
the best decisions in regard to your surgical care.
- We do our best to schedule the office hours to run smoothly,
however, some patients may have questions during their consultations
or the doctor may have an emergency, causing us to get behind. There
is also an element of unpredictability with surgical practices causing
unavoidable delays.
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Medication Refills
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If you require a refill
on your medication, please call your pharmacy to request the refill
and they will contact us.
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| Surgeries/Tests
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When you and the Doctor
have determined a procedure is nescessary, there are many steps that must
be followed. Some of these policies are dictated by the insurance companies.
- Prior authorization of insurance. Nearly all insurance companies
require notes and other documents before authorization, causing a delay
in scheduling.
- Scheduling your procedure. The actual schedule is based on
the availability of both the Doctor and the facility. We wish that we
had control over hospital schedules, but this is not the case. We will
do the best we can to accomadate your scheduling needs.
- Scheduling of anesthesia and assistants, if needed.
- Scheduling of preoperative testing.
Once all of these steps are completed, we will then call you with your surgery
schedule and other pre-surgery instructions.
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| Your Responsibilities
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In order to help you,
please have the following information available for us:
- All applicable test results, x-rays, or other information to
help with your care.
- Have your insurance referrals if your insurance company requires
referrals for specialists. Contact your Primary Care Doctor prior to
visits to assure that insurance referrals are done.
- Know your insurance plan! Familiarize yourself with its policies
and procedures.
We make our best effort to obtain these, but ultimately it is up to you.
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| Billing Policies/Procedures
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In order to to facilitate
the insurance process, please help us with the following:
- Bring your referrals/authorizations with you to your visit.
You are responsible for obtaining these, and they will only
help to make your visit easier for you!
- Complete insurance information. We are more than happy to bill
your insurance for you if you would please provide us with all of your
insurance information including a copy of your card. We need the completion
of the forms in order to help you.
- Self payment arrangements. We have a flexible billing plan
for those patients without insurance. Arrangements must be made prior
to elective surgery.
If you are a current patient, and have had a change of insurance or primary
care physician, please notify us as soon as possible, so we may update our
records. This will avoid confusion and delay in the scheduling procedure,
as well as keeping costs to you down.
Our billing staff will be happy to answer your questions regarding any
changes concerning services rendered by the physicians in our practice.
For any other facility, laboratory, anesthesiologist, or assistant services
that were not provided by our practice, you will have to contact that
facility or provider of service for questions regarding the bills for
their service.
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