We encourage you to review this information as it will assist you with office protocol and may answer questions that may arise prior to your appointment.


CHECK-IN/LATE POLICY:
In order to see all of our patients on time or even early, we encourage our patients to arrive 15 minutes prior to the scheduled appointment time.

Patients who arrive more than 15 minutes late will be rescheduled. In order to receive your preferred date and time for your well-child visit, we ask that you schedule your appointment 4 to 8 weeks in advance. All appointments must be scheduled, including sick-visits. Sick-visits can be booked and seen on the same day.

If your child is experiencing a life-threatening emergency, call 911 or take him/her immediately to the nearest emergency room in your area.

Failure to appear for a scheduled appointment or cancellation with less than a 24-hour notice will result in a $50.00 charge.


CO-PAYMENTS:
Co-payment is due at time of check-in for your appointment. If co-payment is not received at time of service an additional $10.00 will be charged to your account.


SAME-DAY/SICK APPOINTMENTS:
If you have a question, we encourage you to call during regular office hours. Our experienced nurses are trained to help you. If you need to speak with your doctor, your call will be returned between patients, during lunch or after 5:00 pm.

Our policy is to have parents first speak to our triage nurse when calling for an appointment for an illness. This is so that we can provide you with timely advice and care since the doctors are not able to interrupt in-office patient care, and often cannot call back until after regular hours.

If your child is ill and needs a same-day appointment, please be able to bring your child in as soon as possible, if we deem it necessary and an appointment is available soon after your call.

While we understand and appreciate that children need to be in school, if your child is ill he/she needs to be seen in our office as his/her illness and our schedule allow. This is particularly true if your child will need any testing (i.e., labs or x-rays) or emergent specialist referrals.

Your child is better served if we can do these things earlier in the day. Furthermore, while we strive to have you see your doctor of choice for same-day appointments, our policy is that your child will be seen by whichever doctor is available for that same-day appointment.


WALK-INS:
Our policy is that we do not accept walk-ins in order to minimize the waiting time in our office, and to not inconvenience patients with previously scheduled appointments. Please call us first to schedule an appointment if your child is ill. We do our very best to get all children in who really need to be seen on the same day.


PHYSICIAN CALLBACKS:
As noted above, physicians will often not be able to return calls until after regular hours. They are unable to interrupt in-office patient care for phone calls unless it is for an absolute emergency. Therefore, we encourage you to speak with our triage nurse first if there is an acute issue that needs to be addressed.


AFTER-HOURS CARE:
We understand that children can get sick at all hours of the day. We ask that if there is a routine question, an appointment request or a non-urgent matter, that you call during our regular office hours.

We do not refill medications after regular hours which are best done when your child’s chart can be pulled and reviewed.

Should an urgent matter arise after regular hours that cannot wait until the following morning, please call us. By calling our office number you will be forwarded to our answering service who will relay your message to a doctor. If you do not receive a call from a doctor within 30 minutes, we ask that you call again.


LABORATORY/X-RAY RESULTS AND REFERRALS:
Frequently, our patients need studies done or referrals to a specialist. Our physicians make it a policy to call back on all laboratory results whether they are normal or not. If you do not hear from the physician within 2 weeks after your child has had a laboratory test or an x-ray/radiological study done, we expect you to call us.

Do not assume that the results are normal if you have not heard from us. This serves as a check and balance system and ensures that nothing gets overlooked.

The same goes for referrals. We do not receive notification that you have received your authorization, therefore, we need you to call us if you do not receive your authorization by mail within 2 weeks after it was submitted. This way we can ensure that your child receives the necessary care.


BILLING AND COLLECTIONS:
We will bill your insurance company after each visit. It is your responsibility to keep your insurance and personal information current in our files. Co-pays, co-insurances, deductibles and balances must be paid must be paid at the time of your service. This is a contractual agreement that we have with your insurance company.

If we do not receive payment from your insurance company within 90 days after the service, then payment for services becomes your responsibility.

After your visit charges have been reconciled with your insurance you will receive a billing statement from our office. The amount on this statement will reflect your balance owing which is due and payable within 30 days.

Any balance remaining on your account for services not covered by your insurance company will be your responsibility. We send bills out on the 1st and 15th day of each month and payments are due on receipt of these bills.

A $25.00 service charge will be automatically added to your bill for every 30 days that your payment is overdue.

Each returned check will be subject to a $25.00 penalty fee.

Once a bill has been deemed to be your responsibility, we will provide you with the information you need to receive reimbursement, but we will not re-bill or wait for payment from your insurance company. Please submit all information regarding claims to billing@hppgmail.com. Please do not use this email address for any medical questions or to contact your physician or other members of staff.

We accept most PPO plans including but not limited to: Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Cigna, Aetna, and their subsidiaries.

You will need to call your carrier and verify our participation in your network to determine your coverage as it is the patient’s responsibility to verify his/her insurance coverage.

We do not verify insurance coverage. You will need to call your carrier and verify our participation in your network to determine your coverage.

We do not bill any secondary policies. You will need to submit your primary Explanation of Benefits directly to your secondary carrier for any additional reimbursements. We also suggest that you familiarize yourself with your insurance policy regarding well- checkups.

Please be sure to notify us of any change in insurance, address or phone number(s). Remember newborns must be added to your insurance plan within the first 30 days after birth.

We will be happy to assist you with any of your billing questions or concerns.


MEDICAL RECORDS/SCHOOL FORMS/IMMUNIZATION RECORDS
These are the charges for the following services:

School, Camp or Athletic Forms: $15.00 per patient
Yellow Immunization Card: $15.00 per patient
Medication Forms: No charge

Please allow 3-5 days for your request to be processed as the forms are completed in the order they are received. Please note that these forms can only be completed if the patient is up-to-date with his/her annual physical examinations and immunizations.

On request, we can provide you with a generic form to submit to your child’s school at no additional cost.