Policies

Healing Path Integrative Medicine, PLLC
Practice Procedures and Policies

1. Access and Communication:

There are two ways to communicate with me outside of office visits: email and phone. Email is the preferred route and will get priority over phone message. Email capability is required.

Email is most appropriate for:

• Your intial contact with me;
• Follow-up questions within 2-4 weeks of a visit;
• Scheduling issues that cannot be handled by the online scheduler.

Email is not appropriate for:

• Any emergency — call 911 and /or go to the Emergency Room !!
• Seeking detailed advice for a new or old problem;
• Seeking any email medical advice if I have not seen you within one year;

Ordinarily there is no charge for brief emails. However, I reserve the right to charge for frequent or lengthy e-mail messages. For multiple responses and/or for lengthy emails that require a lot of time to compose or research, I will charge $55 per 15 minutes of time.

Confidential Email
Regular e-mail is convenient for communication but is not private or confidential.
When you register to be a patient at Healing Path Integrative Medicine, you will be asked to sign a consent if you agree to communicate by regular, non-encrypted email.

2. Scheduling Appointments:

This is not a full-time practice but I am accepting new patients at this time. I see patients by appointment only, but if my schedule permits (see online scheduler), I may adjust my schedule to see patients at times other than these hours:

Monday           9:30 to Noon, 1pm to 5pm       Currently Mondays are Phone only.

Tuesday           9:30 to Noon, 1 pm to 5 pm

Wednesday      Closed

Thursay            9:30 to Noon, 1 pm to 5 pm

Friday               9:30 to Noon, 1 pm to 5 pm

I also do phone consults for your convenience if you are an established patient. They are billed at the same rate as an office visit and require a credit card over the phone at the time of scheduling.

Note: Phone consults that require labs ordered or prescriptions will have 10-15 minutes of consult time ($40-60 )attached to the visit charge as these are tasks that are normally performed at an in office visit, and are more labor intensive as a phone consult.

Be aware that most insurance companies do not reimburse for phone consultations.

Consults that are 15 minutes will be phone consults only.

HOW to SCHEDULE:

New patients: Please first contact me and include the gist of what you want to address at your visit. Please also include your telephone number for a call back, and time frames to call you (example: not before 9am, not after 10pm, Monday thru Sunday). I find it best to talk first to be sure we are a good fit. This is a free call, and is typically < 10-15 minutes. I appreciate your consideration that this free call is not an avenue for medical advice.

Established patients: Please use the online scheduler to make an appointment.
Contact me if you need assistance.

To book an appointment using the online scheduler: On the right side of every page is a “Make Appointment booknow” widget. Click this. Read the text and SCROLL DOWN with the shaded bar on the right side. Click on the “select a location”. Then click the Standard Services box; click on the appointment slot most approprate for you; the next screen for “Select Staff” select “Anne Walch”.  Then choose your day and time. Finally, under “New Client”, register your information.

All patients please read this HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices Form (download PDF). As required by law, it is available for you to read and to print should you desire to do so. There is also a hard copy of this in the office to read.

REQUIRED FORMS: Please print and complete these forms BEFORE your visit, and bring them with you to your visit.
All patients, please complete:

1. Patient Registration Form (download PDF)
2. Patient Intake Form (download PDF)
3. Consent to Communicate with Others (download PDF)
4. Consent to Communicate NonSecure Modalities (download PDF)
5. Medical Records Release Consent (download PDF)

All Medicare or Medicaid patients must also complete:

1. Medicare Private Contract (download PDF)

All lyme or potential lyme patients please complete these forms:

1. Antibiotic Consent form (download PDF)
2. Lyme Consent to treat from (download PDF)
3. Please read this article before completeing the Lyme and Antibiotic consent, “Lyme Disease, Two Standards of Care” (download pdf)
4. Also, bring the name and phone/fax info of your primary care provider.

3. Fees

* Note, for extra complex consults in addition to the $485, I charge $50/15 min if it goes over 2 hours and/or if review of records will be extensive.

Established patients:  
After your initial visit, if you choose to continue with me, most people will require a follow-up appointment within 2-4 weeks to review labs (if ordered), and to further refine our treatment direction.

For other fees, see below.

4. Cancellation / Missed Appointments/Late appointments:

• Your commitment to an appointment time is necessary to serve you.  If you need to cancel or reschedule a new-patient appointment, advance notice by either email or live, voice contact with me, 48 hours prior to your visit is required; if not cancelled 48 hours prior, you will need to pre-pay for the visit should you choose to re-schedule it. 

• If you do not show for your intial scheduled visit without any prior advance warning, to reschedule an appointment there is an additional $100 fee for the inconvenience,etc.

• For an intial visit, I may chose to consider the visit “missed” if you have not arrived within 30 minutes of our agreed time—particularly if you have not contacted me.

• For follow-up appointments, advance notice of one business day is required.  Two missed appointment will necessitate pre-payment for all appointments thereafter.

5. Payment of HPIM fees

• I do not take any insurance, nor Medicare, or Medicaid. This means that HPIM consult fees will be cash, “out-of-pocket”, rendered at or before time of service.

• Your insurance may or may not reimburse you for “out-of-network” expenses incurred here.  Reimbursement for any claims is between you the patient (insuree) and your insurance company. I will provide on your receipt  the necessary information so that you may file for reimbursement; however, HPIM is not responsible for non-payment by your insurance company. You are responsible for obtaining the correct claim forms and completing them correctly so that any reimbursement is promptly processed.  Note that any insurance reimbursement that comes to this practice will be returned to the patient’s insurance company and will delay any reimbursement to you. Take your time, confer with your insurance company and carefully complete your insurance claim forms should you choose to file for reimbursement.

• You can securely pay for any charges here https://squareup.com/market/healing-path-integrative-medicine using your bank account or credit card, or you can pay at your office visit with exact cash, check (preferred) or credit cards.

6. Labs

• HPIM has accounts with traditional labs such as LabCorp and Quest. If you do not have insurance you can obtain labs through my account; if you do have insurance you should check before our visit to see if labs at LabCorp or Quest Diagnostics are covered by your insurance.

• HPIM also has account with functional medicine laboratories – some of which traditional insurance will cover [that is your responsibility to check out].

• Lab fees are separate from professional fees.  At our consults we will decide together which labs — if any — we should order.

• Labs are ordered in the context of a visit and the results are reviewed at the follow-up appointment unless there is an urgent finding that needs to be discussed sooner.  There is a charge — based on time–  for ordering labs outside of a consult.

• If your insurance carrier denies payment for you labs and requires more information from me, I charge for my time in responding to them according to my consult fees. See “Prior Authorizations” below.

• If you get your labs at Pardee or Haywood Regional, there is a fee to handle them based on time. They process and send labs to HPIM in a very time consuming manner.

7.  Prescription Refills

• Before asking for a refill, please check with the pharmacy to see if you have refills.
• Medication refills are to be done at an office visit/ consult. Bring refill requests to your appointments to avoid a charge for refills between visits.
• Between visit refills will only be for a maximum of 30 days and there is a handling charge of $15 to $30 to process your refill request between appointments. You can securely pay for any charges here https://squareup.com/market/healing-path-integrative-medicine. ALWAYS PROVIDE me with your DOB if you are contacting me for refill.
• If you are requesting a prescription that I have not written for you before, you must schedule an appointment.
• If I have not seen you within the past year, I will ask you to schedule an appointment with me in order to continue getting medication refills.

A) For a prescription that I wrote for you: Contact the pharmacy first. They will either fill the prescription (no charges from HPIM) or contact my office to request an authorization.

B)  For a prescription another practitioner wrote for you: Contact the pharmacy first, as above. Or, contact the person who wrote the prescription in the first place. For me to refill that prescription, I will need to do it in the context of a visit.

If you contact me by email regarding a prescription refill, please provide the following information:

• Your legal name
• Your date of birth
• The pharmacy phone and fax number
• The prescription reference #
• The name of the medication, the dose, the amount/number you need.

8. Medical Records

• You will receive a complimentary digital copy of all your HPIM consult notes as well as any labs or imaging that are ordered. You can share your records with whomever you desire, and whenever you desire.
• Beyond your complimentary copies, records sent digitally will only incur a cost based on my time, with a minimal fee of $15. You should have all your HPIM records. The time needed to send your records can take 15 minutes ($60) if you have a lot of visits and labs.
• Any hard copies of your record needed will incur a fee to cover the costs incurred in searching, handling, copying, and mailing medical records to the patient or the patient’s designated representative. If sent as hard copy, the fee for each request shall be seventy five cents (75¢) per page for the first 25 pages, fifty cents (50¢) per page for pages 26 through 100, and twenty five cents (25¢) for each page in excess of 100 pages, with a minimum fee of $15. In addition, there is a cost based on my time in dealing with these hard copies.

9. Your Letters, Forms, and Prior Authorizations

• “Prior Authorizations” are your insurance companies mechanism for limiting their payment on anything from generic medications, brand medications, labs, MRI’s, Ultrasounds, CT scans, surgeries. It is their way of increasing their profits by denying you coverage. They expect your medical practitioner to argue on your behalf for free.  It is not unusual for doctors to spend 3 hours per week on wrangling for Prior Authorizations and many more hours for their staff. It can take 10 minutes to 1+ hours to attempt a Prior Authorization and even then it may be denied. For my practice to be sustainable in this climate, I charge for time spent on Prior Authorizations whether approved or denied. $70 for 15 minutes; $130 for 30minutes and $185 for 45 minutes. And so on, per usual charges for time.  You can securely pay for any charges here https://squareup.com/market/healing-path-integrative-medicine or I will invoice you by email and you can pay with credit card.
• Forms must be supplied by the patient with insurance information and fax/phone numbers provided in order for our office to complete these forms.  Since we are “out-of-network” we do not have access to forms or insurance information.
• Time spent completing patient-generated paperwork and forms will be billed at corresponding office visit rates. You might be asked to be present for the form completion.
• Disability Forms: The patient’s medical record at HPIM is tailored to assist in improving patient outcomes, not to document levels of disability.
• It is best not to become a patient at HPIM with the intention of obtaining documentation for filing or sustaining disability status.

It has been my experience that although I offer therapies that are widely used and accepted amongst integrative practitioners, these therapies may not be considered mainstream therapies amongst conventional physician and insurers. Since I cannot provide appropriate documentation to withstand scrutiny in disability cases, and so as to not invite a challenge regarding HPIM therapies, I regret that I will not complete Physical Assessment or updated medical evaluation type forms for insurance or disability claims.