(revised 4/20/06)
Welcome to our office! This letter is designed to answer questions you may have regarding your medical care. Our medical staff operates as a team, and we take great pride in our training, knowledge, and capabilities. We want you to know that we are dedicated to giving you quality health care in the most efficient manner possible.
Regular office hours are 8:30am to 4:30pm, Monday through Thursday, and 8:30am to 12:00 noon on Friday.
Appointments with Dr. Flick are scheduled Monday through Thursday between 10:00am and 4:20pm.
We will do our best to see you at the scheduled appointment time. We believe strongly in the value of your time and will do our best to keep you from waiting unnecessarily. When canceling or changing an appointment, please do so as far in advance as possible.
Should you miss or reschedule an appointment without giving at least 24 hours notice, you will be charged a $40 late cancellation fee, which is not covered by your insurance.
Our office telephone number is (812) 469-2040. All telephone calls are answered by staff during regular office hours. This allows the clinicians to attend to scheduled patients with a minimum of interruptions. If you should find it necessary to contact a doctor after the hours designated above, the answering service will forward the message to the physician on call. Please be aware that I share call coverage with three other well-established psychiatrists. They will attempt to handle any urgent problems, but please don't ask them to make major changes in your treatment plan since they are not familiar with your medical history.
Medication refills will only be handled during regular office hours and only if you are currently under our care. If you need a prescription refilled, please have the name of the medication, the pharmacy telephone number, and the dosage schedule handy when you call. Due to the amazing number of patients who ask us to given them written prescriptions for their mail-order Rx program, and then lose those prescriptions prior to mailing them in, we now charge $5.00 per Rx to replace any lost prescriptions.
This seemed excessive to me until I added up the time spent by my office manager and me in taking the call, giving me a note, writing the Rx, calling back the patient, and possibly mailing the Rx’s. Even at $5.00, we’re losing money. I’m not doing this to make money; I’m doing it to encourage my patients to be more careful with where they put their medication orders. Don’t lose your prescriptions and this policy won’t cost you a thing.
We make every effort to keep the cost of your medical care to a minimum. You can help by paying at the time of your visit. This is expected unless prior financial arrangements have been made. For your convenience, we accept payment via cash, check, or credit card. Returned (bounced) checks will be subject to a $20 fee, in addition to any fees you may be charged by your bank. If you have a question about a bill or insurance form, please contact our billing company, Pollux Systems, at (812) 471-1591 or (800) 467-2392.
If you have insurance coverage, please understand that this is an agreement between you and your insurance company. You are responsible for the payment of your bill regardless of the status of your insurance claim. Payment of your portion of the bill will be expected at time of service. To enforce this provision, we will no longer schedule routine follow-up appointments until your co-payment has been made. While this may sound extreme, we'd simply like to be treated the same way you treat your grocery store or gas station.
If your situation is a medical emergency, then the above paragraph does not apply. However, in that case, we may ask that you go to the emergency room for an evaluation. (Just to be clear, running out of medications does not constitute an emergency.)
If we are a participating provider with your insurance company, your payment will likely be a deductible or co-payment. If we are not a participating provider with your insurance company, we will be expecting full payment at the time of service.
As noted above, a health insurance policy is an agreement between the patient and his/her insurance company. As such, complaints about payment delays are much more effective coming from you (the insurance company’s paying customer) than from me.
Whether or not we’re a participating provider, if your insurance company is particularly slow in paying their portion of the bill, you may be asked to pay the remainder of the bill, pending reimbursement from the insurance company. We will work with you to resolve the reimbursement delays, but we will no longer suspend our normal collection procedures waiting for the insurance company to straighten out their delays. As already mentioned, complaints to the insurance company from you tend to be answered more quickly than complaints from us, and I’ve found that patients are much more assertive in demanding their right to prompt reimbursement when their own money is involved.
Every effort will be made to protect your personal information. Physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with federal standards are in place to limit disclosure of this confidential information.
A full copy of our privacy policy may be found here.
The best health care is based on a friendly mutual understanding among staff, doctor, and patient. If any problems or questions arise, do not hesitate to bring them to our attention immediately. Again, thanks for choosing this office. We're looking forward to meeting you!