Practice Policies

As a patient at Cedar Point Health, we want you to be aware of how your care will be delivered. It may vary from that of other medical practices.

Be aware that:

• We may not have all of your medical records on file before your first visit. In order to facilitate getting you into the practice quickly, we may not have received all of your records from your previous provider. If you would like us to wait for all of your records to arrive prior to the first visit, please communicate this to the receptionist that is scheduling your appointment. As such, we request that you are thorough as you fill out this packet.
• Generally, we do not prescribe chronic pain medications. Our practice is determined to prevent prescription drug abuse and dependency. As a result, no refills or new prescriptions for narcotic pain medications will be given to a new patient in our practice without meeting with you and reviewing your history/records. Continuation of narcotics is not likely, but may occur in rare circumstances, such as cancer-related pain, at discretion of your new provider. Furthermore, we reserve the right to dismiss patients who fail to adhere to guidelines laid out in pain medication agreements.
• We have adopted a Care Teams as our care delivery method. Your Primary Care Provider (PCP) will oversee the delivery and coordination of your care. Other providers in your care team will work closely with your PCP to ensure that your medical care is timely and personal. Although most visits will be with your PCP, you will see other providers within your care team. A care team consists of three or four providers, two medical assistants, and a scheduler. Care teams allow us to balance the needs of hospitalized patients with those in our clinic. If your PCP is caring for critically ill patients in the hospital, you can still be seen by a member of your care team who is familiar with your medical history. The goal is to provide better access through coordinated team-based care without sacrificing the intimate patient-provider relationship.
• Communicating changes to your insurance is your responsibility. If you fail to communicate changes in insurance, you may be responsible for paying your medical bill out of pocket. Insurance companies often have particular requirements for documentation and billing and failure to meet these requirements may result in your claim being denied. If we don’t meet requirements because you failed to communicate a change in benefits, you will be required to pay that bill.
• Failure to show for an appointment may result in fees. We strive to be accessible and on-time for our patients. We ask that you are respectful of our time by arriving early for your appointment and by informing us if you are unable to come. We ask that you notify us of cancellations at least 24 hours in advance.  Failure to show for appointments without prior notification may result in fees and, eventually, termination from the practice.
• You may be billed for items that fall outside the scope of ‘preventive’ during a wellness visit. Many insurance plans now cover an annual ‘preventive care’ or ‘wellness’ visit that is different than a traditional ‘physical.’ Our practice is preventive and wellness focused and we do these visits regularly. We discourage use of the wellness visits to discuss acute illnesses or chronic concerns as such items fall outside of what insurers define as preventative and may result in additional charges that your insurance may not cover. If you have non-preventative items you wish to discuss, please notify the scheduler and they can set up  a separate appointment dedicated to these concerns.
• Allow three business days for prescription refills.
• Understand that narcotics will not be filled early or on weekends.
• Allow up to five business days for a return of labs. If your lab results are non-urgent, it may take a few days for your results to be returned. If the results are urgent they will be returned more quickly. 
• We ask you to use our Patient Portal.  This tool helps us to provide more timely responses, and allows you to send secure messages, ask your doctor or nurse questions, request and cancel appointments, view chart documents and visit summaries, and more. To set up your Patient Portal account, provide us with your current email address and ask us to send you an invitation. See the Portal Login page for step-by-step instructions on using the Patient Portal.
• Know what your insurance benefits are. Be prepared to pay any co-pays and co-insurance.