July 3, 2014
Dear Revdex.com:
Our office values all of our patients. When the doctor is out of town usually there is a provider available to see all of his patients that need to be...
taken care of. However, there are some patients that have specific conditions that require controlled substances to be prescribed. The other providers cannot write these controlled prescriptions. Therefore we have a policy in place.
The patients that need these controlled Rxs are printed on a spreadsheet and our staff calls them for days on end trying every number we have in their files to get in touch with them and leaving messages for them to call our office. When we finally get in touch with them we let them know that if the child needs one of these prescriptions on the days the doctor will be out of town then they should come in our office ahead of time so that we can get that for them.
Again, we make every effort to contact every single patient on our rolls that falls into this category. We call many times. We call every single number on file. We set aside special days just to book ALL these patients before the doctor leaves town.
This was the case with[redacted] son. We made an appointment for her son for May 22, 2014. The day before the appointment we also called to remind them of the appt date, time and place by calling the main number on file and documenting that in our notes.
Unfortunately, after all the work we put in trying to help this patient they NO SHOWED for the appointment. They didn’t call or anything. Then on the 23rd they called our office to state that the child needed his medicine. By that time the doctor had already left town.
If the parent had an emergency come up that day the could have called and let us know at before the doctor left town very early on the 23rd he would have written the prescription and sent it to his office for pick up. These prescriptions can not be written ahead of time. Only on the day of and therefore all the patients had to come in before he left town. However, we did have a couple that had extreme circumstances and the doctor got up 4am on the 23rd and wrote those out so that they would indeed be written on the very day. Those patients then saw the other provider that was there that day and those patients were given the signed prescription. By the time [redacted] called he had already left town.
This situation was by no means any fault of this office. We went above and beyond to contact our patients. Some offices do not do that. We were disappointed that the patient didn’t show. The fact that the mother was so irate after all we did to go the extra mile is disheartening. The fact she wants to leave our practice for this is upsetting. The fact she wants to write letters to the Revdex.com AND contact her insurance company and act as if we did something wrong is unbelievable.
As far as us charging for the medical records. Any patient is free to leave if they feel they are not receiving good care at our office. However, when they choose to leave and ask for medical records there is an administrative charge to process this. We have to pay employees to handle the request and to sit and print all the pages out and to mail them to the patient. By law we are allowed to charge a flat fee of $15 and then a charge per page.
Our office reviews the records request, totals the charges for the parent and then fills the request. Once [redacted] was told of the charge for records she became irrational.
I am sorry that all this has happened and that our office has had to spend a large amount of money talking about this issue, calling the insurance company back, writing this response letter, etc. This is why health costs rise because the world is full of irrational complaints while doctors and medical offices try to do their very best.
We will not be able to honor [redacted] request for free medical records. That would be unfair to the rest of our patients who respect the laws on this issue.
However, we are more than willing to collect the fees and process her medical records request. We would love to retain this family as patients but apparently our efforts to go above and beyond in treating her children go unrecognized.
July 3, 2014
Dear Revdex.com:
Our office values all of our patients. When the doctor is out of town usually there is a provider available to see all of his patients that need to be...
taken care of. However, there are some patients that have specific conditions that require controlled substances to be prescribed. The other providers cannot write these controlled prescriptions. Therefore we have a policy in place.
The patients that need these controlled Rxs are printed on a spreadsheet and our staff calls them for days on end trying every number we have in their files to get in touch with them and leaving messages for them to call our office. When we finally get in touch with them we let them know that if the child needs one of these prescriptions on the days the doctor will be out of town then they should come in our office ahead of time so that we can get that for them.
Again, we make every effort to contact every single patient on our rolls that falls into this category. We call many times. We call every single number on file. We set aside special days just to book ALL these patients before the doctor leaves town.
This was the case with[redacted] son. We made an appointment for her son for May 22, 2014. The day before the appointment we also called to remind them of the appt date, time and place by calling the main number on file and documenting that in our notes.
Unfortunately, after all the work we put in trying to help this patient they NO SHOWED for the appointment. They didn’t call or anything. Then on the 23rd they called our office to state that the child needed his medicine. By that time the doctor had already left town.
If the parent had an emergency come up that day the could have called and let us know at before the doctor left town very early on the 23rd he would have written the prescription and sent it to his office for pick up. These prescriptions can not be written ahead of time. Only on the day of and therefore all the patients had to come in before he left town. However, we did have a couple that had extreme circumstances and the doctor got up 4am on the 23rd and wrote those out so that they would indeed be written on the very day. Those patients then saw the other provider that was there that day and those patients were given the signed prescription. By the time [redacted] called he had already left town.
This situation was by no means any fault of this office. We went above and beyond to contact our patients. Some offices do not do that. We were disappointed that the patient didn’t show. The fact that the mother was so irate after all we did to go the extra mile is disheartening. The fact she wants to leave our practice for this is upsetting. The fact she wants to write letters to the Revdex.com AND contact her insurance company and act as if we did something wrong is unbelievable.
As far as us charging for the medical records. Any patient is free to leave if they feel they are not receiving good care at our office. However, when they choose to leave and ask for medical records there is an administrative charge to process this. We have to pay employees to handle the request and to sit and print all the pages out and to mail them to the patient. By law we are allowed to charge a flat fee of $15 and then a charge per page.
Our office reviews the records request, totals the charges for the parent and then fills the request. Once [redacted] was told of the charge for records she became irrational.
I am sorry that all this has happened and that our office has had to spend a large amount of money talking about this issue, calling the insurance company back, writing this response letter, etc. This is why health costs rise because the world is full of irrational complaints while doctors and medical offices try to do their very best.
We will not be able to honor [redacted] request for free medical records. That would be unfair to the rest of our patients who respect the laws on this issue.
However, we are more than willing to collect the fees and process her medical records request. We would love to retain this family as patients but apparently our efforts to go above and beyond in treating her children go unrecognized.
Cordially,
[redacted]Administrator
Carolina Pediatric Associates
PS: Please correspond to[redacted].com for any further issues regarding this complaint