Integrative Medicine & Psychiatric Services,Inc
Geriatric Health Care Associates,Inc
FAQ's We try to anticipate questions you might have about our services and provide the answers here. If you have questions specific to your situations that may not be answered here please not not hesitate to call our office and contact Kim Anderson at 703-774-3234
1. Frequently Asked Questions Does your practice offer '' Therapy/ Counselling only '' NO we do not. Our practice is primarily focussed on medication management of psychiatric disorders. We also offer ECT treatments for severe depression or other psychiatric disorders. Please contact a LCSW ( Licensed Clinical Social Worker ) for therapy services. We will gladly refer you to therapist that we frequently work with, in case we find during the process of intial evaluation that you may only need therapy and medication management is not needed in your case. We encourage that most of our patients be in therapy to get best response. Do you accept or participate with insurance?
Yes, we do accept insurances for rountine psychiatric evaluations and medication management and ECT treatments. GHCA will consider taking insurances for services reimbursed by insurances. There are however Alternative treatments aproaches that patients insurances do not cover for which the patients have an option of paying out of pocket . Your coverage of the appointments is based on your individual insurances and benefits and we are unable to provide you any information on what portion of the consultation fee your insurance will cover. Patients are required to call their insurance companies and get information on their benefits. The fee for appointments is due at the time of the service and has to be paid in full. We do not send invoices. All unpaid accounts are reviewed every 30-60 days and sent to collections in 90 days unless approved and accepted payment arrangements are made. Please note that some insurance companies require patients to get a “prior authorization for services ” before seeing a mental health provider who is either in network or out of network. Our office usually calls and verifies that information as long as patients initial appointments is not an urgent appointment. We need 48 hour-72 hour notice to get back to the patients with that information. If we are unable to verify your benefits, mental health coverage you will be responsible for paying full fee for the appointment untill that we have all the information verified. Once verified we will make adjustments in your fee schedule as per our contract with your insurance providers All copays or fees for the intial appointment are due at the time of service. Initial appointments can only be made after providing a credit card on file which will be charged automatically for the full amount of the appointment unless the appointments are cancelled with a 24 -48 hour business day notice. What if I have to cancel my appointment? We do request that you provide us a 24 hour notice for cancellations so we can schedule other patients. Any appointments cancelled with a 24-48 hour notice will NOT be charged and we will make every effort to accommodate you at a later time. You may also leave a message in our voice mail in case you are unable to reach us. All missed appointments and appointments cancelled with a less than 24-48 hour notice are charged full fee. Please be advised that insurances do not reimburse for missed appointments and the patients will be responsible for and be charged full fee for any missed appointments. All Saturday appointments will require cancellation by 8 PM on Thursday. Monday appointments have to cancelled by Friday 8 PM How do I pay for my appointment? You may pay for your appointment with cash or credit card (Visa, MasterCard or Discover); we do NOT accept American Express. We ask that you do not send your credit card information by email. We will call you to get that information if necessary . We do not accept checks from new patients. Established patients may pay by check but there is a $45 fee for any checks that are returned. We also offer services to patients who prefer to be private pay or do not have mental health benefits. Please call our office at ( 703-953-1557 ) and speak to Kim Anderson for additional information. We are able to offer earlier appointments to private pay since we do not have to call to verify insurances. Do you offer evening and weekend appointments?? Yes we do offer appointments from 4 PM- 8PM – Monday to Thursday. We do not offer any late appointments on Fridays. Saturday appointments are available from 10 AM- 7 PM. Can you accommodate a patient who needs to be seen urgently Yes, We are able to offer urgent appointments to a some patients however the patients may need to pay for the intial appointment upfront ( $250-$300 ) untill their benefits can be further verified and prior authorizations acquired from Insurances.
What do I do if I have not been seen in the clinic for 3 months?? We require that all stable patients are seen at the clinic at least once every 3 months as per the minimum state requirement. We will not continue to fulfill refill requests for patients who are not seen at least once every 3 months. Please call the office at 703-774-3234 to first make an appointment. We suggest you make an appointment at least 2 weeks before your refills runs out to prevent any discontinuation in your medications. In special circumstances where you are unable to come into the office due to some unforeseeable circumstances we can mail you a 15-30day supply until your next appointment. All patients on controlled substances may need to to come in more often. What do I do if my insurance needs a prior authorization for a medication? Some insurance companies require prior authorizations for certain medications. In case you are aware of a medication that requires prior authorization we will need your Insurance ID, Address and Date of birth and a number where we can call for prior authorization. Do you give 3 month prescriptions? Yes we can provide you medications prescription for 3 months in case you want to use a mail order pharmacy however we have to assess that on a case by case basis due to safety issues with patients. What if my pharmacy sends your office “automatic refill requests”? We do not routinely fill such requests. Since such requests have resulted in medication errors and duplication we do not like to call refills without seeing the patient or confirming their medication list. This is specifically done to minimize drug interactions that might occur in case the patient starts on a medication that we are not prescribing and are unaware of another physician prescribing. We will get an update of all the medications and supplements that you might be taking during your appointment so we can inform you of any drug interactions. Do I need to tell you about the supplements I am taking? Yes, we do need to know about the supplements you are taking as some nutritional supplements interact with psychotropic medications and cannot be safely taken with psychiatric medications. If you are unsure about the ingredients please bring your supplements with you so we can check them. What is your office policy about releasing records? We will release records after we receive a consent form signed by you that authorizes us to release information to another provider. Please note that there is a charge per page or a flat charge that has to be paid before we will mail records. We do NOT release records directly to the patients due to the sensitive and confidential nature of psychiatric records. For patients who are using insurances we usually follow the guidelines set by their insurance providers. All records however will be sent to the physician you choose to follow up with only after we receive a written request to our office. Messages left for releasing records is not enough to release records. We make every effort to protect the confidentiality of psychiatric records and therapy notes.
Geriatric Psychiatry and ECT Treatment Reston Virginia |
