On the day of your appointment please have the following:

• For the office
  • Insurance Card if billing visit to insurance
  • Copay or deductible and admin fee (either cash or credit card as we do not accept checks).
• For the medical chart / physician
• Completed new patient forms - see forms page
• A list of current medications and dosages.  You are welcome to bring the pill bottles with you.
• Copies of previous medical records that you would like us to have.
• Previous physician name and phone number if you would like us to get these records.

Annual Administration Fee:

• Please note, we do have an annual administration fee for all patients (except those exempt on state AHCCCS) - this is for non medical administrative services that are generally excluded or not covered by most insurance plans. 
• See the "Forms Center" tab for the form and more info.

Time Frame For Appointments:

• New Patients: We generally cannot accomodate new patients the same day - depending on the time of year we may be a few days to a few weeks out for new patient appointments. 
• Established Patients: Generally, we offer same day (or within 24hr) appointments for all current patients.

Can't make an appointment that you already scheduled:

• Please call and notify our office.  We appreciate being given a 24 hour notice of cancellation. You can even leave a message after hours on our voice mail with the receptionist. 
• You may also use cancel or confirm when our automated appointment system calls you by following the prompts (this only works if you any the call, it does not work if the appointment reminder message is left on your answering maching).

For your annual visit, including your first visit.

• Do I need to fast?
• If you haven't had blood work for over 1 year we recommend you consider arrive fasting for 8 hours to have annual labs.  You can have water, black coffee or tea without cream or sugar.
• Bring your insurance cards
• Bring your photo ID
• Bring cash or credit card for payments
• Bring your completed health history form
• We kindly request you fill this out with all your information. 
• It is very difficult to get this information later. 
• We do request you tell when your last labs, vaccines, screening, procedures, colonoscopy, well woman/well male exam were done. 
• It is very difficult to now where we are going with your health if we don't know where we are coming from.
• Do NOT count on your past records making it to a doctors office to provide this info.  If you need help understanding what was done - we can review your past records with you during a separate appointment.

WE DO NOT MANAGE or PROVIDE the primary/prescribing role for the diseases listed here. 

1. Chronic Pain
1. We do not prescribe chronic pain medications (eg. percocet, norco, vicodin, oxycodone, hydrocodone, oxycontin)
2. We do not prescribe muscle relaxors for chronic/routine use (eg flexeril, skelaxin, soma)
2. Fibromyalgia
3. Insulin pumps
4. Cancer
5. Seizure Disorder
6. ADHD
7. Bipolar, severe depression or severe anxiety
1. We do not prescribe sedatives, benzodiapenes for daily use (eg. ativan, lorazepam, xanax, valium)
8. and others

If you have these conditions, we can still be your primary care doctor and help refer you to specialists in these areas and coordinate your care for these diseases.

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WE DO MANAGE AND CARE FOR and EVALUATE PATIENTS WITH (to mention a few):

1. Most all primary care and internal medicine complaints
2. CARDIOVASCULAR Disease
   1. High Blood Pressure
   2. High Cholesterol
   3. Chest Pain
3. LUNG DISEASE
   1. Asthma
   2. COPD
   3. Bronchitis
   4. Pneumonia
   5. Cough
   6. Valley Fever
4. GI DISEASE
   1. Heartburn, Acid reflux, GERD
   2. Diarrhea, Constipation, Irritable Bowel Syndrome
   3. Abdominal Pain
5. ENDOCRINE / Metabolic Diseases
   1. Hypothyroidism
   2. Fatigue
   3. Vitamin Deficiencies
6. PREVENTIVE PRIMARY CARE
7. ROUTINE VACCINATIONS
8. Well male exams
9. Well woman exams
10. ...And most other conditions from Allergies to Zoonotics

REFILLS:

• To get a REFILL of a medication that office knows you take, we request you CALL YOUR PHARMACY and they will send the request to use. 
• We use ePrescribing which is the latest technology available for refill that allows for more accurate and faster refills.
• We patients call the office directly there is often more confusion about dosing, names etc and may delay your request. 

NEW MEDICATIONS:

• For any NEW MEDICATION, call the office for an office appointment with your doctor. 
• We DO NOT prescribe new medications over the phone. 
• For example, if you feel you have a sinus infection that requires an antibiotic, we kindly request you make an office appointment to discuss your symptoms, confirm a diagnosis and provide treatment options and go over risks and benefits of treatment.

SPECIFIC MEDICATIONS:

• Any 'scheduled' drugs requires an office visit for any and all refills. 
• This includes pain medications (percocet, vicodin), anxiety medications (ativan, xanax), and sleep aids (ambien, lunesta).
• Please DO NOT call in for a refill and please respect these policies as they are in place to protect everyone. 
  These medications in particular are potentially very dangerous and we feel require an office visit, discussion and evaluation prior to ANY REFILL.
• We will NOT prescribe '90 day' supplies for any narcotic pain medications nor benzodiazepine anti-anxiety medications.  Please do no ask us to do so.

1) On line:

Our patient portal, a secure online system, allows you to view and print labs that have arrived into your medical record electronically from the lab (which is how the majority of results are sent to us).  You need to already have signed up for this service in our office, have a username and password.  Here is more info - click here.

2) Via Phone:

WHAT:

We utilize an automated phone system for lab results.  As soon as your lab results are reviewed by the physician, a personalized description of your labs and interpretation will be recorded and available for you to review.   We realize this is not the same as a phone call from the doctor/office directly, however, we feel this will best allow our office to get you results.

HOW:

This service is provide by a company known as CallPointe and is safe and secure.  This is how it works:

1.      FIRST, OUR SYSTEM WILL CALL and NOTIFY YOU:

a.       You will get an automated phone call to the home number listed in your record. 

b.      You will then be given the toll free number 1-866-495-0994 to call.

2.      THEN, YOU CALL THE TOLL FREE NUMBER # 1-866-495-0994

a.       If you call from the phone number the system called you on -

                                                                       i.      Go to step 3

b.      If you call from any other phone number,

                                                                       i.      you have to enter the phone number and then the # sign that the system called you on (i.e. the primary phone number you gave us on your office paperwork),

                                                                     ii.      ENTER it AFTER being prompted - not during or before

                                                                   iii.      then go to step 3.

3.      ENTER YOUR PIN then the # sign - this is the last four digits of your social security number

a.       You must have provided this to us already

4.      LISTEN to the message/voice recording

a.       Your doctor will get an electronic update that you have listened to the message

If you don't call in and listen, the system will call you for 3 days and then stop. 

NOTE:  We make every effort to get your labs to your in a timely process but it is your responsibility to retrieve your lab results and if you do not get lab results called to you, please call us and let us know as you should NOT assume they are normal - you SHOULD assume we didn't get them either.

FINAL COMMENT:

This will be the primary way most labs are reported from our office. You can always still call the office, after listening to your personalized message, to discuss these results further or come in for an appointment to discuss these results in more detail.