We are committed to meeting your healthcare needs. Our goal is to provide quality service while keeping your insurance or other financial arrangements as simple as possible. Your insurance is a contract between you, your employer, and the insurance company. We are not a party to that contract. As medical care providers, our relationship is with you, not your insurance company.
Not all services we provide are covered by your insurance company. Some insurance companies arbitrarily select certain services they will not cover. While the filing of insurance claims is a courtesy that we extend to patients, all charges are your responsibility from the date the services are rendered.
My Psychiatrist will file claims and attempt to collect from your insurance company. It may become necessary for you to pay your account in full if your insurance company fails to pay for services within 60 days. It is your responsibility to understand your coverage and benefits, including pre-certification, referral, and authorization requirements. We will, however, assist you in ensuring that all plan requirements are met. You are ultimately responsible for paying any balances.
If your insurance coverage or your insurance carrier changes and you do not notify My Psychiatrist within 30 days of that change, you will be responsible for paying the full amount for your service.
Payment for services, including copayment and deductible amounts, is due at the time services are rendered unless payment arrangements have been approved in advance by our staff. Our failure to collect these amounts may be a violation of our contract with your insurance company and may result in civil and criminal penalties and/or expulsion from your insurance plan. In addition, your failure to pay the required copayment amounts is a violation of your financial responsibility for coverage, and we may report your refusal to pay these amounts to your employer and/or insurance company representative.
If your plan requires a referral from your primary care physician, we will try to obtain one for you, but you are ultimately responsible for knowing whether we have received a referral. If we do not receive a referral from your primary care physician, we will have to bill you for the visit.
We will try to obtain prior authorization for you, but you are ultimately responsible for knowing whether we have received it. If your insurance company fails to pay us for our services because prior authorization was not obtained, we will have to bill you for the visit.
Our office charges $35 for a returned check. My Psychiatrist has a “one bad check” policy: if your account has one returned check, you will not be allowed to write checks for future services.
We will mail you a monthly statement for any outstanding balance. If your insurance carrier has not paid the claim within 30 days of the date of service, please contact your carrier and assist us in getting the claim paid.
We will try our best to assist you in any way possible with your bills. Any balance that is over 90 days old may be transferred to an outside collections agency for credit reporting. A patient who has been placed in collections must pay any prior balance owed to the practice, the collections agency fee, and any attorney fees in cash.
Ancillary services are all services, other than those that are part of an initial assessment, that are performed by a physician, psychologist, social worker, nurse practitioner, or therapist at My Psychiatrist outside of appointment times (including the exchange of information with other clinicians). They will be billed at the provider-specific hourly rate. Typically, these services are not covered by insurance companies.