As a medical practice, our goal is to provide you with the best possible medical care. As a small business, we strive to be patient friendly and cost effective. This payment policy represents our effort in this area. If you have any questions, please ask.
Payment is expected at the time of service. Patients who agree to pay in full at the time of service are offered a significant discount from our customary fee schedule. Payment plans are considered on a case by case basis.
If you have insurance, we will happily bill it for you. Determining the cost of a visit when you use insurance is quite difficult as each policy can have a different co-payment, co-insurance or deductible, and our contracted rates vary with every insurance contract. Copayments and co-insurance are due at the time of service, but frequently we have to bill the insurance and await a statement from them called an explanation of benefits (EOB) to determine what you owe. Once we receive the EOB from your insurance, any remaining payment is due.
Historically we have billed by mail, but in an effort to be more efficient, we are asking every patient to provide us with a credit card at the time of service. Your card will not be charged until the Explanation of Benefits (EOB) returns from your insurance.
The only amount charged will be the “patient responsibility” portion as defined by your insurance. We will contact you before submitting charges over $200. You will receive an Email notification or mailed statement with the amount charged to your credit card.
You retain the right to contest charges with your credit card company or contest EOB determinations with your insurance company. We diligently assist patients with this, often appealing even before billing the first time.
Although not traditional in medical care, this use of credit cards is commonplace with hotels, rental car agencies, gasoline stations, mail-order and internet businesses.
We take safeguarding your financial information as seriously as we take protecting your personal health information. To that end, we have contracted with a third party subsidiary of Wells Fargo to hold your encrypted credit card number securely for us. This way, your credit card information cannot be associated with personal identifying information from our medical record.
If you do not have a credit card or otherwise object to the policy above, please review this with one of our physicians to create an individual plan.