We are committed to providing excellent medical care for you and your child. In order to do so, we must run the financial aspects of the practice as efficiently as possible. When we see you/your child in the office, we usually do not ask for payment in full at the time of your visit. As a courtesy to you, we bill your participating insurance company first, and, if the insurance company does not pay for the visit in full, we then bill you later for the remainder of the payment. By delaying our request for payment for services, we are essentially granting you credit for the cost of that visit, in faith that we will ultimately be paid by either you or your insurance company. By granting this credit we do take on some risk that we may not be paid for our services to you. However, we are willing to take that risk in order to decrease the immediate financial burden to you while we await a response from your insurance company.
In order for us to take on that risk, we do ask for your social security number. This is important information for us to have if payment is not received, and we must utilize a collection agency. This is a standard practice, employed by any merchant granting you credit.
When a dermatologist takes a biopsy or removes any tissue from your skin, protocol dictates that it be sent to an accredited laboratory for slide preparation. To ensure proper identification, the social security number must be part of the labeling process. If, after reading the above information, you choose to withhold the information our office requires to establish your medical record and account, you have three (3) options:
1. Before services are rendered, you must provide us with a valid credit card and a signed authorization to allow us to bill to it any charges, co-pays, or deductibles for which you are responsible, or
2. Payment in full for services will be collected at the time of checkout, or
3. Transfer to another practice.
Please be assured that we have very strict policies to protect the privacy of your medical records and billing information. Thank you for trusting us to care for you or your child, and partnering with us to make our practice the best that it can be.
Thank you,
Blue Ridge Dermatology
PROTECTION OF CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION
Blue Ridge Dermatology has taken a proactive stance of protecting all patient/parent private and medical information. To do so, we have developed the following practices and principles to secure all private information within this office.
*Limiting access to records containing private personal and medical information to those who need to see the information for the performance of their duties.
*Restricting access to all computers via the use of ID, password, firewall, and anti-virus/spyware.
*No storage of records on any computers or other devices not secured against unauthorized access.
*Sharing of personal/medical information only with other companies or organization where required by law for treatment, operations, or payment.
*Shredding of all paper documentation containing personal or medical information before discarding.
*Prompt notification of the affected individual in any instance where personal/medical information may have been inappropriately disclosed and risk of identity theft or other harm exists.
*Requirement that employees obtain identifiers other than the SSN when looking up records for the individual.
