Practice Policies
Insight Integrative Health
We are looking forward to working (or continuing to work) with you. We have prepared this notice to acquaint (or update) you with the current general policies of our practice. These policies apply to all new and existing patients.
1)Initial Appointments – Initial Appointments with your IIH practitioner are considered to be “in consultation” to encourage you to be intentional about deciding to work together. If either party feels there is not a good fit, we will encourage discussion about this and will do our best to suggest other options.
2) Services provided – Insight Integrative Health provides services “in consultation.” We do not provide primary care services, and each patient must also document their primary care physician. Under certain circumstances we can work with individuals without a primary care physician, with the understanding that for primary care services they will be required to establish care with a physician or organization that provides primary care.
3) Cerbo by MDHQ patient portal – To protect your privacy and comply with HIPAA requirements, IIH uses a patient portal for all clinical issues. You will receive an invitation to create an account to your email.
4) Contact Information:
Scheduling: For Fastest service, please request new appointments through the patient portal. Patients may also request appointments at info@insight-integrative-health.com or through our phone number, though these requests are filled after portal requests are processed. Please do not include any clinical questions or information in appointment requests.
Billing and Refill requests: Please use the patient portal for billing and refill inquiries.
Issues that cannot wait until our next appointment: Note that email and phone calls are not appropriate for questions about treatment planning. Those kids of questions should be addressed during scheduled appointments. If you have a brief question that absolutely cannot wait until our next appointment, please reach out to IIH through the patient portal. Any questions outside of scheduled time should be non-urgent, bried, concise, and ideally answerable with a “yes” or “no”. If your questions or concerns are beyond the scope described above and/or require more time and attention, you will be invited to schedule a brief follow-up appointment.
Urgent Issues: The office does not have the capacity to manage urgent care issues.
Emergencies: As always, if you have an emergency, please call 911. In addition the San Diego Crisis Line # is 1-888-724-7240. Deschutes County Crisis is at (541)322-7500.
5) Billing – Payment is due at the time of service. We can at that time bill the credit card on file. If using a contracted insurer, they will be billed and our office will follow up with any portion you may be responsible for. This will be charged to the CC on file. If you are not covered by a contracted insurer, we can provide paperwork for you to file a claim and seek reimbursement from your insurance provider, if available, but reimbursement from you insurance, if available, is your responsibility. Typical codes used for reimbursement are 99204-5, 99213-5, 90833-8.
5) Missed Appointments/Rescheduling/Cancellations – our policy is to charge for missed appointments. We require at least two business days of notice for any rescheduling or cancellation requests. (For example, to cancel an appointment scheduled for Monday at 9am, you should contact our office before 9am on the previous Thursday.) Any rescheduling or cancellation requests with less than two business days of notice will result in a charge of 50% the private pay rates. If you provide two or more business days of advanced notice, we will make every effort to reschedule your appointment as soon as possible. We run a small practice with limited time slots for patients, many of whom book their appointments months in advance. Therefore, we ask that you do your utmost to keep your originally scheduled appointments and please understand that rescheduled appointments may result in a significant wait.
6) Virtual appointments – Appointments are currently all online via telemedicine using a secure, HIPAA compliant software. Currently, licensing and practice guidelines allow Dr. Flagel to see patients who reside anywhere in California or Oregon.
7) Requests to Refill Medications and/or Prior Authorizations – The office requests 3 days of business notice for refills an/or to complete prior authorizations. Please plan for this and contact our office through the aptinet portal for requests or updates. Medications requiring physical prescriptions should be requested during in-person appointments. Requests to mail such prescriptions will be considered on a case-by-case basis and, if approved, are subject to a $25 fee.
8) Supplements – We recommend supplements and botanicals, when indicated as part of the treatment plan. These recommendations are based on extensive training in Integrative and Functional Medicine, clinical need, as well as researched on purity, quality and price. We have spent significant time researching companies we trust. Some of these companies often offer discounts that are divided between IIH and the patient, resulting in lower prices to you. Please know that not all supplement brands are created equal and the quality of Supplements cannot be guaranteed from unchecked online sources. Therefore, while patients are welcome to source their supplements elsewhere, we urge caution given quality is not guaranteed everywhere.
10) Additional Services – In addition to your time with a IIH practitioner, we will provide certain complimentary services as part of your appointment fee, including regular contact and coordination with you other care providers, laboratory interpretation, customary insurance reimbursement paperwork, (see “Billing” above), ordinary pre-authorization requests for your medication from your insurance company, and completion of mediation refill requests as appropriate. Other services, including employment-related forms, letters, phone call and email appointments, coordination of care with providers that becomes extensive, etc will be billed according to your practitioner’s prorated hourly rate.
We encourage you to discuss any concerns you have about our policies. By agreeing to continue treatment, you agree to these terms.
