Appointments

                                                         Office Hours
Office hours are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. We try to schedule all appointments to minimize waiting time and to provide optimal care for each patient. 

                                   Telephoned Medical Questions
Our clinical staff is thoroughly trained to answer many routine medical questions. If they can’t immediately assist you with a problem, your physician will be informed.  Your physician will answer routine calls at the end of the morning or after office hours.  This allows the physician to attend to his office patients with minimum interruptions.  Urgent problems are handled as soon as possible!

                                     After Hours Emergencies
When true emergency situations occur after hours, calls are automatically forwarded to our answering service.  They will take a brief message and see that it is relayed as soon as possible to the doctor on call.

One of our physicians is always on call to respond to your ear, nose, and throat problems. In case of a life threatening emergency, go immediately to the nearest hospital emergency room.

                               What to Bring to the Appointment
Your insurance card (s)
Your driver’s license or photo identification
Physician referral forms if required by your insurance
A list of current prescriptions and/or over the counter medications you are taking, please include the dose and frequency
Pertinent information about your medical and surgical history
Any recent X-rays, MRIs or PET scans (actual films preferred)
Any recent lab work

                                     Referral authorizations
Certain health insurance plans require that you obtain a referral authorization from your Primary Care Physician (“PCP”) before visiting a specialist’s office like ours. You are responsible for obtaining this referral authorization and keeping track of the number of visits allowed as well as the start/end dates of your referral authorization.  Alternative payment arrangements or rescheduling of your appointment may become necessary if proper authorizations have not been obtained.

                                           New Patients
You should make sure that all medical records related to your previous treatments are forwarded to our office prior to your first appointment.  This includes any laboratory testing or cat scans done at other facilities.

                         Appointment No Show/Cancellation Policy
If you are unable to attend an appointment please call the office promptly so we can offer the appointment to another patient. If it is necessary to cancel your scheduled appointment please call by 10 a.m. one (1) working day in advance.  

When you are scheduled for an appointment, that time slot is made unavailable to any other patient.  If you do not show up as planned, we have lost the opportunity to provide our services to another patient. Therefore, you will be responsible for a $40.00 fee for failing to keep a scheduled appointment or for failing to provide our office with at least 24 hours’ notice of a cancellation. In such event, you will be directly billed a no-show/late cancellation fee of $40.00.  Your insurance company will not be billed.  Patients who miss more than two appointments may be dismissed by the practice.

Our current office policy is to make at least one attempt to contact patients one or two days in advance of their appointments as a courtesy reminder. However, patients are ultimately responsible for keeping their appointments.