MEDICAL CARE PROCEDURES FAQ

We ask that all prescription refills be requested at the time of your office visit. Please assess any refill needs prior to coming to the office. This will free up time for our nurses so that they may dedicate more of their time to patient care, and timely returning urgent phone calls. If you need a refill at another time please call your pharmacy first when you need a refill. The pharmacy will fax our office the appropriate forms to complete the process. The doctor may ask that you schedule an appointment if it has been a while since your last visit so that he can accurately monitor your health. Please allow 2 business days for refill requests to be completed, so please call your while you still have enough medication for four more days. No controlled substances will be prescribed or refilled without an appointment.

Please feel free to call our office if you have any questions regarding your condition, medication or treatment. Our office staff can also assist you with questions regarding appointments, billing and insurance. We ask that you always spell your name and leave your date of birth when leaving messages. Please remember our physicians and nurses are treating patients during the day – we value your concerns – and will get back to you at our earliest convenience, which may be at the end of the working day.

Your medical records are completely private. To ensure patient confidentiality, and conforming to HIPAA regulations, no information regarding your condition will be released by this office to anyone, including any family member, without your written consent. Please stop by the office and fill out a simple form to have us send them elsewhere.

Please call us as soon as you know you are going to be late. Every attempt will be made to see you as quickly as possible. If you do not call to alert us, and show up more than fifteen minutes late we may ask you to reschedule. Our office strives to see patients timely.

Our staff is instructed to attempt to reach you by phone or ultimately by mail to make you aware you missed an appointment, and to reschedule. While all of us occasionally have a lapse in memory, if someone is frequently missing appointments, they will be disassociated from the practice.

If you cancel a follow-up or annual appointment our staff will attempt to reach you by phone, and ultimately by mail to reschedule. Please give us 24hr notice in order to better serve our patients.

Most test results done locally are available online on our Patient Portal up to 7 days after we have received them. If it has been longer than 7 days, feel free to e-mail us through the portal for any test results. We will always call you if there are any concerning or urgent concerns in your test results when we receive them.

For routine visits we make every attempt to have you see your own doctor. Only in rare occasions (hospital emergency, doctor illness) will we ask you to see the other doctor. For sick visits you will be placed with whichever doctor is available at that time. You are not allowed to request a specific doctor unless your visit is regarding male or female related illnesses.

For any labs that are done at our office, if you are required to be fasting you should not eat for eight hours before your appointment. In the morning you may have black coffee (no cream or sugar), diet soda, or water. Please take all your medications that morning, unless you are diabetic, in which case consult with the doctor or nurse regarding what you should hold the morning of the appointment.

For any forms that require an exam you will be scheduled for a visit with the doctor. We require access to those forms BEFORE we give you an appointment. The doctors will NOT fill out any capacity forms for your lawyers. The doctors reserve the right to not fill out any form they feel uncomfortable with. They require seven days to fill out other forms such as FMLA, authorization for medications, equipment, or tests.

It has become standard across the country for doctors, known as ‘hospitalists’, to take care of patients in the hospital. This allows for a doctor to be present in the hospital 24/7, to see patients as soon as they are admitted, and to respond immediately to any status change. We require a hospital follow-up appointment to be made as soon as possible once discharged- preferably within 3-7 days- so that we can make sure you are responding well to the treatment, understanding any instructions, and make sure that there are no pending tests that need to be ordered. People who see their primary care provider 3-7 days after hospitalization have a significantly higher chance of staying out of the hospital.

As of February 2010 we no longer accept assignments for Worker’s Compensation.