Office Policies

How to reach your doctor:

The office telephones are open from 9 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday. Patients may leave voice mail over the weekend. Please listen to the complete phone tree menu before making your selection. Please only select the emergency line if you truly believe you have an emergency. Our staff will promptly respond to all messages left on our voicemail. For after-hour calls, regarding matters that cannot wait for the office to reopen, please refer to our After Hours Calls policy.

Missed appointments:

Because a missed appointment squanders an appointment time when another patient could have been seen, as well as delaying your child’s care, our office requests a 48-hour notice of a cancellation. As a courtesy, an appointment reminder call will be made in the days prior to your child’s scheduled visit. Failure to cancel an appointment 48 hours before the date will result in a $50.00 missed appointment charge or a $100.00 missed stimulation test charge.

If you are late for your appointment:

Please call us if you do not think you will be on time for your child’s visit. Your time is valued by us, and we make every effort to see your child on time. Often our providers are running late because a prior patient arrived late. We have a 10 minute grace period for your appointment, but at your doctor’s discretion, you may be asked to reschedule your appointment.

Prescription Refill Requests:

To minimize the need for a refill request between office visits, we will make every effort to provide you with an updated prescription at your visit, and the prescription will typically have an adequate number of refills until your next appointment. In the event that you require a prescription renewal prior to your appointment, please call your pharmacy and have the pharmacist electronically request a prescription refill. Alternatively, please call our office and follow the phone tree to leave a message on our prescription line. Please note that you must have a scheduled upcoming appointment with us in order for our staff to renew your request. We will make every effort to refill prescriptions within 2 business days.

No prescriptions will be filled after hours or on weekends unless absolutely necessary. If there are extenuating circumstances and your pharmacy requires a prescription after hours, your pharmacist will need to call the physician on call. If you have not been seen at our office because you have failed to make an appointment or if you have failed to show for your last appointment, we reserve the right to refuse to prescribe medication or to issue a time-limited prescription, to allow you to make another appointment. This is in accordance with the principles of good clinical practice.

Medical and Camp Forms:

Sports physicals should be completed with your child’s primary care physician. We are happy to review and sign forms related to your child’s endocrine condition. Please complete as much of the form as possible prior to your visit. We will strive to complete the form during your visit. If a form is mailed or faxed to us, we will make every effort to return the form within 7 days.

Insurance:

Payment Policy

We understand that health insurance benefits are often very frustrating and confusing and this can lead to a misunderstanding or conflict between our office and our patient. Please keep us updated of any insurance changes.

At check-in, we may request that you provide us with a valid HSA, credit or debit card to store in our off-site secure gateway credit card system. PEA has partnered with InstaMed, to securely store patients’ debit/credit card information. InstaMed provides encrypted and secure storage of patient credit/debit card information in strict accordance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS). These are global standards for transmission and storage of financial data.

We will swipe your card to store your credit card data off-site for one year. If you have an outstanding balance, we will make arrangements with you at your visit to collect the balance, either in full or via a payment plan with automatic monthly billing to your credit card. If you have a co-payment due at the time of service, this amount will also be collected. In addition, if we have your deductible information, we may request to charge your credit card for the balance due from the visit. We will reconcile this amount once your insurance carrier has processed our claim for services provided.

After your visit, we will submit a claim to your insurance carrier for the services you received. Once the claim is processed, you will receive an Explanation of Benefits (EOB) from your insurance carrier detailing the exact amount of your financial responsibility, based on your benefit plan, deductible amount, and co-insurance. If you have any questions about your EOB, please contact your insurance carrier before contacting our office. We receive the same EOB within 2 to 4 weeks following your appointment (date of service). Our billing department will review the EOB carefully and then charge your stored credit card the amount that matches what your insurance has determined to be your responsibility. You will receive an email notifying you of the charge.

We accept Visa, MasterCard, AMEX, and Discover card and all bank debit cards and Health Savings Account (HSA) cards. Kindly ensure that your HSA is appropriately funded to prevent any charges from being declined.

Patient Balances:

All patient account balances are payable within 30 days of the date of the billing statement. They are payable to Pediatric Endocrine Associates, 8200 E. Belleview Ave. Suite 510E, Greenwood Village, CO 80111.

We understand that some families may experience financial hardship and require help in paying off their bill. If this is the case, it is your responsibility to call 303-783-3883 within the 30 days and ask to speak with our office manager or our biller, who will attempt to make “special arrangements,” at their discretion. If special arrangements are made, you will be asked to sign a promissory note, which will include the payment schedule and amounts to be paid.

If you default on paying your bill within the 30 days, we reserve the right to add late payment fees up to ten percent. If you fail to honor your payment plan with or without a signed IOU agreement on file, you may be charged interest in the amount of ten percent on the money that you owe.

If you ignore our billing statements or phone calls or messages to pay your bill, we reserve the right to send your bill to a collection agency. If that occurs, you will be liable for any collection fees and/or legal fees that are incurred. If you fail to pay the bill, plus interest, plus fees, you will be reported to the credit bureau.