Policy & Procedures

Medical Records Policy:  
Coeur Vitality is happy to provide each patient with one  copy of their chart (up to 30 pages)  free of charge. If records are over 30 pages or additional copies of the chart are requested by the patient, there will be a charge per page and payment will need to be received before records are released.  Please allow 7 to 10 working days for your medical record release request to be processed. If you have a situation in which you need your copies released sooner, please contact us and they will always try to accommodate your request.

Laboratory and Other Ancillary Services Bill Separately: 
Although Coeur Vitality provides many services within the office, at times it is necessary to utilize services from other ancillary businesses to complete your care.  Our clinic is partnered with LabCorp for our routine lab work and processing.  You will receive a separate statement of charges for services provided outside our office, as we do not bill for these services.  An example of these services would include: Lab Corp, special specimen evaluation labs, radiology services, and other specialized diagnostic testing.  Any questions with statements from these ancillary services, we ask that you contact them directly as our billing department is not privy to these details. We don’t keep track of their prices directly unfortunately as they are always fluctuating and coverage varies with each insurance plan. 

Coeur Vitality is dedicated to maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of your protected health information.  In conducting our business, we will create records regarding you and the treatment and services we provide to you.  We are required by law to provide you with a notice of our legal duties and the privacy practices that we maintain in our practice concerning your PHI.  You will receive a complete and detailed copy of our Notice of Privacy Information Practices at your first appointment.

 

Privacy Practices will be followed by:

The individuals identified above will share your health information with each other for purposes of treatment, payment and health care operations, as further described in the Notice.

 

Disclosures of health information may be necessary for treatment, payment, and health care operations.  Each of these purposes are outlined in detail in your copy of the Notice of Privacy Information.

 

Your rights regarding your health information:

We understand that unforeseen situations may arise causing you to cancel or reschedule your appointment. However, please be respectful of our patients that need to be seen sooner by notifying our office at least 24 hours prior to your scheduled appointment time.  Cancellation without 24 hours advance notice will be considered a "late cancellation".  For missed appointments or if showing up >15 minutes past your appointment time, these will be considered “no show's”.  Multiple "no-shows" can be very disruptive to our physicians’ schedule, and prevent other patients an opportunity to see their provider.  Every effort is made to remain on schedule.  In order to keep the schedule on time, being more than 15 minutes late for an office appointment will mean cancellation for that appointment and rescheduling for a later date.  This is important so that we do not run into the next patient’s appointment time and shift the entire schedule behind.

 If you have had multiple late cancellations or no-show’s (this includes presenting more than 15 min late to appointments) you may be given first a warning notice, then a letter of dismissal from the clinic if the warning is not heeded.

Every phone call is important to us, and we will attempt to answer your calls and return your phone messages as promptly as possible. If it is a life threatening situation, please hang up and call 911 or go to your local emergency room. If your call is a true urgent matter, please speak to the front desk receptionist rather than leaving a voicemail with your providers nurse so that they can facilitate prompt triaging of your situation. Please allow 24 hours for non-urgent calls. We try to return all voicemail messages before the end of each business day.  Voice messages received after 4 pm, may not be returned until the next business day. Please be aware that the providers will not leave their scheduled patients to return routine phone calls; these are generally answered after patient care sessions are finished. 

Good medical care cannot always be accomplished over the phone, so we may advise you to schedule an office visit to discuss your concerns, problems, or test results. 

We do encourage you to leave a detailed message, spelling your name, as we check our voicemail frequently throughout the day.

Co-payment and Keeping Insurance Information Up To Date: Our contracts with the insurance companies require us to collect co-pays at the time of service.  We will bill all health insurance companies that we are contracted with as long as you provide the correct billing information (a copy of your card works best).  If you do not have a co-pay listed, you will be required to pay $30 at the time of service until this detail is later clarified. We suggest you call the number on the back of your card and know your co-pay and deductible amount.  It is your responsibility to know your coverage, please make sure you have us listed as your primary provider, and be sure in advance to your appointment that our office is contracted with your insurance. If your Insurance is updated or changed, it is your responsibility to inform us and verify that your new insurance is accepted by Coeur Vitality Family Medicine. If we bill old information, this frequently causes a several month delay in payment and a re-billing fee might apply.  

3rd Party Claims:  If you are involved in a civil suit, auto, home or business owner’s accident and are seeking payment from the responsible party, we expect payment at the time of service. It is Coeur Vitality's policy not to bill third party's directly weather it is Aflac, auto insurance, or other responsible party’s insurance or attorney for your services in these situations due to the length of time it takes to settle these claims. Coeur Vitality will provide you a copy of your statement so you can submit your bill to the responsible party for reimbursement, but payment will be expected and due by the patient at the time of services provided by Coeur Vitality.

Annual Preventative & Medicare Wellness Appointments: It is our clinic's policy to collect a co-pay at the annual Preventative physical and Medicare Wellness visits as frequently we are  discussing much more than just immunizations and preventative screenings, which does warrant an additional E&M office visit code be applied to your account.  We find it very valuable to be comprehensive and intentionally touch on all chronic conditions once annually so they do not get lost to follow up, get any Rx refills lined up for the year after making sure all are still important & safe  in your care, review labs together in detail addressing abnormals at that time, and in some cases ordering new diagnostic tests or referrals.  To accomplish this level of detail to your care we set aside much longer appointments, and this frequently saves you from being asked  to come back for a separate appointment to manage these other conditions!   If no additional medical conditions or concerns are addressed outside of preventative wellness screening and review, then your copay will remain as a credit on your account and be applied to your next visit!