If you haven’t noticed already, this clinic is set up differently than a traditional medical office. There is no receptionist, medical assistant or billing specialist. Having no additional staff means you will have more direct and personal contact with me regarding all aspects of your health care, which I believe will give us both enormous satisfaction. It also means that you and I will become partners in getting you the best possible health care, which sometimes means helping each other with administrative and paperwork issues that may come up. As a result, some of the clinic policies may be a bit different from what you’re used to. Please read below about the policies specific to this clinic. If you have questions about anything, please contact me directly.
Office Hours
The office will be open Monday and Friday 10-5, Wednesday 12-7. Office or home visits on non-business days (Tuesday, Thursday, holidays and the weekend) may be available by prior arrangement.
Appointment Scheduling
If you are a new patient, please call the office at 888-480-1115 and leave a message. I will get back to you shortly to discuss appointment times and the new patient information packet.
If you are an established patient and would like to schedule a routine appointment, call the office at 888-480-1115 and leave me a message stating what the appointment is for and how soon you would like to be seen. On the message, leave a few dates and times (on MWF) that would work for you. I will get back to you by the next business day, and often quite a bit sooner.
If you are an established patient and would like to schedule an urgent office visit on a business day (MWF), simply call the office line and leave me a message. Urgent visits are scheduled on a first-come first-serve basis, so calling as soon as you know you need an appointment will help secure your spot. In fact, since you are leaving a voice mail, feel free to call in the middle of the night so I get your request first thing in the morning. If you call before 9:30 am I will have time to call you back before the clinic opens and offer you an appointment before the end of the day. If you call after 9:30 am, I may not get to my voice mails for several hours, depending on how busy the office is, making it less likely I can offer you a same day appointment. So call early! If you call for an urgent visit on a non-business day (Tu/Th/weekend), I will offer you an appointment on the next business day. In certain situations, I may be able to open the office to address urgent health needs on a non-business day or arrange a home visit, in efforts to save you a trip to the emergency room/urgent care. In both cases, additional fees may apply, which are sometimes covered by insurance.
Parking/Transport
The clinic is located at 1235 SE Division at the corner of 12th avenue. It is a dark green building behind the Artemis Café. The entrance to the building is located to the right of the café. Non-metered street parking is available for your use. There is parking in Ladd’s addition on Eliot, and both curb lanes of Division are available for parking as long as it is not rush hour (see posted signs). The building is on Trimet bus line #4 along Division and #70 along 12th. Bike parking is available at the entry.
Waiting Room
Technically, there is no “waiting room” since there should be no waiting. I schedule patients far enough apart so that one patient visit is finished well before the next one begins, and you can walk into my office right on time. If you arrive early or while I’m still with a patient, my office door will closed. In these cases, feel free to take a seat in the atrium of the building or grab a beverage at Artemis Café out front. When you see my door is open, please come in.
Late Policy
I hope once you realize you will be seen on time, you won’t have any reason to show up late! Still, I understand that on occasion it is impossible to be on time. If you do show up late, we will discuss your options. If my next patient is not due for some time, we may decide to proceed with your visit. Depending on the timing, this may need to be a shorter appointment than you would have had otherwise, and we may need to limit ourselves to discussing only your most pressing issue. Alternatively, we may decide we need to reschedule for a different day. If this happens, you will be charged the $75 late-cancellation fee.
Cancellation/No Show Fee
Your appointment slot is long (typically 60-90 minutes). Although we often don’t use the entire time slot for you appointment, this time is reserved for you and no one else. Please call me at least 24 hours prior to your appointment if you need to cancel. This will allow me to offer your slot to another patient. Simply call my regular office number at 888-480-1115 and leave me a voice mail message. Email also works. If you do not notify me at least 24 hours beforehand, you will be charged a $75 cancellation/no show fee.
Phone
I am the only one answering the phones for my office. Therefore, whenever you call, you can expect a response directly from me. For the vast majority of your concerns, including appointment scheduling, billing issues, or health questions, please leave a message on my main office line at 888-480-1115. I will be checking these messages regularly and will get back to you no later than the next business day.
There may be times when you have an urgent health issue and require immediate assistance or advice from me, even though it means interrupting me from work or family time. In these situations I encourage you to call my main office line at 888-480-1115. The recording will give you my personal cell phone number where you can reach me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If I don’t answer right away, please leave a message on my cell phone, and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Please use this privilege appropriately.
For a life-threatening emergency, always call 911 immediately.
There may be rare times when I will not be able to return your urgent call to my cell phone promptly (such as my cell phone battery dying unexpectedly) and what was an urgent situation becomes an emergent situation. In these cases, please don’t delay in seeking emergent care or calling 911.
Email can be a convenient way for us to communicate non-urgent messages, such as appointment requests, normal lab results, or billing issues. It is NEVER appropriate for urgent health needs. Additionally, you need to be aware that email is not entirely secure. For example, if your email address is through your employer, your employer may be able to read the messages. Likewise, there is a small possibility of interception of messages from outside parties (“hackers”). For these reasons, it is best NOT to transmit messages of a sensitive nature, such as mental health, substance abuse, or HIV status through standard email. With these guidelines in mind, please let me know if you’d like to communicate with me via email.
Vacations
There will be times when I will be out of town or otherwise unreachable. Dates of upcoming vacation plans will be posted on the home page of my website. If you have an urgent health question or need to be seen while I’m away, call my main office line. It will put you in touch with a physician colleague of mine who can assist you.
Hospitalizations
I hope you will never need to be hospitalized. However, I’ve made arrangements with Legacy Hospitals (Good Samaritan, Emanuel, and Meridian Park) to take care of you should you be hospitalized. Their team of hospitalist physicians (specialists in the care of hospitalized patients) will communicate closely with me about your health issues and the outcomes of your hospitalization. If your insurance requires you to be hospitalized elsewhere, I will strive to obtain all of the information and results of your hospital stay. Please tell the hospital that I am your primary care physician so they can update me with all important information. Also, within a day or two of your discharge, please call me so we can discuss your situation and how soon you need to be seen.
Refills
Refilling prescriptions consumes a surprisingly large portion of staff time in a standard medical office. As I will be operating this clinic without staff, I will not be able to refill prescriptions outside of office visits. When I write a prescription, I will give you enough refills to last at least until your next scheduled office visit. If your refills are running low, it likely means it is time to schedule your follow up appointment! For medications that aren’t used every day of the year, like allergy or headache medications, this policy will require you to be mindful and anticipate future refill needs during your current appointment. If all else fails and you end up needing an emergency refill outside of an office visit, call my office line with the drug name and dosage as well as the pharmacy phone number. I will attend to it on the next business day. You will be charged a $15 administrative fee for this service for the first prescription, $5 for each additional prescription.
Please do NOT have your pharmacy contact me for refills. These refill requests are often auto-generated at the pharmacy or are simply incorrect, and I ignore them. You must contact me personally if you need an emergency refill outside of an office visit.
Narcotic/Scheduled Medications
I rarely believe it is in the best interest of my patients to rely on chronic narcotics or sedatives, and I do not prescribe them. I may prescribe them for a short period of time for acute needs on a case by case basis. By law, these cannot be refilled over the phone.
Termination of the Doctor-Patient Relationship
You may terminate our relationship at any time for any reason. I would appreciate communication from you expressing your desire for termination, but it is not required. Likewise, I may terminate our relationship at any time. Generally, I will reserve this measure for patients who are not abiding by the stated policies, are delinquent in paying bills, or are disrespectful to me, my clinic, or their own health. If I choose to terminate our relationship, I will notify you in writing. You will then have 30 days to find a new physician, during which time I will be available to you for urgent health issues only. You may request a transfer of medical records to your new physician.
Payment Policies
I am currently a participating provider with the following insurances:
1) Blue Cross
2) ODS
3) Lifewise
4) Pacificsource
5) Great West
If you are a member of one of these insurance plans, please bring your member card to all appointments and notify me of any changes to your insurance status. I will submit bills to your insurance for you as a courtesy. You will need to pay any copays at the time of your visit. Payment may only be made by cash or check. If you forget to bring your copay there will be an additional $15 accounting fee. Additionally, you will be responsible for any balances your insurance deems are your responsibility (such as a deductible or co-insurance) and for full payment of non-covered services. Each insurance plan differs in what services it covers. For example, not all insurances cover physical exams or certain vaccinations. It is the patient’s responsibility to understand his insurance and what is covered.
If you are without insurance, you can receive a 25% discount by paying with cash or check in full on the day of your appointment. Please call me if you have specific questions about my rates.
If you have insurance but your plan is not listed above, I will prepare a bill for you to submit to your insurance for reimbursement. You will need to pay the office charges in full by cash or check on the day of service.
I will notify you if you have any outstanding charges. Payment of outstanding charges is due within 30 days of my notification. If I have not received payment for outstanding balances by 30 days, a $15 fee will be added to your account, and will be added again for every 30 additional days the account remains unpaid in full. If you are suffering financial hardship, please contact me directly well in advance of the 30 day period, and we can negotiate a payment plan with waived late fees.
A fee of $30 will be imposed for a bounced check.
These policies may be updated periodically. Please check back from time to time to see what may have changed.