Office policies

 

Below are some of Women’s Health Associate's most commonly asked questions about office policies. These policies are preferred guidelines to help patients best utilize our services.

 

• Telephone calls
• Emergency care
• Prescription requests — new or refills
• Scheduling of appointments
• Cancellation of appointments
• Acknowledgement of charges and responsibilities
• Use of cell phones
• Authorization to release information
• Health insurance and disability forms
• Patient privacy and the HIPAA notice of privacy practices
• Authorization to assign benefits

 

Telephone calls

Patients are asked to call with routine questions during our regular office hours. When calling with a problem or question, please describe the situation in detail to our staff. This will help the providers determine the nature of the problem and respond quickly and accurately to your request. Either a staff member or provider will return your call as soon as possible. However, please understand that our office handles emergencies on a regular basis. If your call is not returned in what you feel is a timely fashion, please call back.

 

Unless the situation is very urgent or of an emergency nature, calls will usually be returned during lunch or after the last patient appointment of the day. Please make sure you leave a number where you can be reached at these times.

 

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Emergency care

Please limit after-hour calls to urgent and emergency needs. If you have an urgent medical situation, call our office at 203-798-0500 to reach our answering service. They will contact immediately the doctor or midwife on call, who will return your call as soon as possible.

 

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Prescription requests — new or refills

Try to request new prescriptions or refills at appointments, when possible. We cannot always respond to prescription requests immediately. Also, keep in mind that many pharmacies do not routinely carry all prescription drugs. Therefore, try to call for a refill a few days prior to taking your last dose.

 

Please call one of our medical assistants during office hours with questions or requests for prescription refills, as we must review your medical chart. We submit most prescriptions electronically, so please be prepared with the name and address of your pharmacy. We discourage prescribing new medications over the telephone, as an accurate diagnosis is usually possible only with an office visit.

 

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Scheduling of appointments

When scheduling an appointment, patients should describe their needs to our staff so that an appropriate length of time can be reserved. We attempt to schedule appointments to accommodate our patients' needs. We also make every effort to see patients at scheduled appointment times, as we realize that your time is valuable. However, sometimes we do fall behind schedule or are called out of office to attend deliveries or to handle emergency cases. In that event our staff will attempt to notify patients by telephone to offer an opportunity to reschedule.

 

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Cancellation of appointments

Patients are requested to provide a minimum of 24 hours notice prior to canceling any appointment. We understand that emergencies do arise on occasion preventing patients from respecting this policy, however we reserve the option of charging patients who repeatedly do not provide adequate notice a $50 fee.

 

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Acknowledgement of charges and responsibilities

The practice of medicine has become increasingly complex in recent times, not only because of technical advancements in the field, but because of the myriad levels of bureaucracy layered on traditional provider-patient communication and medical management decisions. Serious concerns about insurance coverage, pre-certification, and co-payments are understandable, and we will do everything possible to insure that our patients are not burdened unreasonably by expenses as a result of the care we provide.

 

However, we do ask that all patients accept responsibility for the payment of any co-payments or deductibles not covered by health insurance. Patients must also accept responsibility for providing accurate and current insurance information so insurance carriers can be billed correctly and in a timely fashion. Patients accept full financial responsibility for non-payment of medical expenses by insurance carriers resulting from failure to provide accurate information. Patients who require special payment arrangements should contact our office manager, Kathleen Braatz.

 

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Use of cell phones

We understand that cell phones have become essential for many of our patients to stay in contact with loved ones and employers. However, courtesy to our other patients requires that patients refrain from using cell phones while in our offices, especially in the waiting rooms. If a patient or family member must take a call, we ask that they step out of the office for the duration of the conversation.

 

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Authorization to release information

Medical information is strictly confidential. We will not release it to anyone, including another physician, without written consent. However, patients are expected to authorize Women’s Health Associates to release any information acquired during examinations or treatments to third-party payors for payment of all charges. Also, such information may be provided to recognized agencies for the purpose of accreditation, utilization, and peer review.

 

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Health insurance and disability forms

Our staff is pleased to complete health insurance and disability forms for our patients in a timely fashion. However, these requests are frequent and place a significant burden on us. We therefore request a payment of $15 for each form. They will be filled out and signed promptly, usually within 2 working days. The completed forms will be faxed to the insurance company, and the originals will then be mailed to the patient.

 

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Patient privacy and the HIPAA notice of privacy practices

We understand that many of our patients prefer to bring a partner or friend to medical appointments. However, the presence of these individuals may potentially inconvenience or embarrass our other patients while they are being interviewed by our medical assistants. We therefore ask that all such visitors remain in the waiting room until the patient has been placed in an exam room. At that point, our staff would be happy to bring the guest back to accompany the patient.

 

Also, for all our patients, we have posted our Notice of Privacy Practices for you to review. This notice is required by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

 

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Authorization to assign benefits

Patients agree to authorize payment to Women’s Health Associates of the surgical and/or medical benefits, if any, otherwise payable to themselves for medical services. Payments received from insurance companies over and above a patient’s indebtedness will be refunded to that patient when the bill is paid in full.

 

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