Site Content
Responses to FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
1. We continue to take some insurances. Note that insurance companies often use other insurance companies or management services to manage mental health benefits, so you need to ask specifically about whether we accept your insurance. It is your responsibility to give us your current insurance information , and to know whether you have met your deductible. It is your responsibility to pay your copayment at the time of service. It is expensive for us to accept the lower insurance rates and to then send you a bill and wait for payment. We often have to spend several hours per week on "hold" with an insurance company, just to confirm that our patients have insurance. We hate to think of our practice as a business, but we do have to cover our costs or we will not be here. Help us continue to take insurance by paying copayments in a timely manner.
2. It is your responsbility to pay your bill if the insurance company does not pay it for any reason. Note also that, when an insurance company says that a service is not "allowable", it does not mean that we should not have done it, but rather, that the insurance company has determined that it will not pay for the service.
3. We cannot accept medical insurance for any type of psychological or neuropsychological testing. There are too many reasons for this to list here. We reserve the right to make exceptions in rare cases, but we typically do not do so. We will provide you with the best evaluation possible, due to exceptional training and many years of experience. Dr. Eastridge started testing his first patients over 40 years ago, and continues to get extra training in evaluation and consultation on a regular basis. We do excellent work, but it is time-consuming and occasionally expensive.
4. We do not offer services in cases for which we may be required to offer opinions or testimony in legal matters, under medical insurance. For example, we do not perform court-ordered family therapy under medical insurance. Insurance companies typically say that this is not allowable because it is not medically necessary. Sometimes a provider can get away with it, but more often than not, we (the provider) will get a demand letter, often several years later, to pay the monies back to the insurance company. We simply want to avoid those situations.
5. We realize that the family court often decides how much each parent will pay for our services. However, we often find that parents continue to have conflict during and after divorce proceedings and we get caught in the middle. Our policy is that whomever brings a child for an appointment is responsible to us for payment for that appointment. If the "other" parent is supposed to pay, that parent can either pay in advance of the session, or the parent bringing the child can seek reimbursement from the other parent. We have no power to enforce family court decisions.
6. Try to be at your first appointment about 15 minutes early, to get forms, insurance cards, etc. in order. If we are doing videotherapy or teletherapy, we will need all documentation prior to your appointment. We run pretty much on time. Insurance companies have decided that 45 minutes is enough for an appointment, and pay accordingly, so 45 minutes is the time limit for most sessions. If we are not using medical insurance benefits, sessions tend to run about 55 minutes.
6. Our office accepts cash or checks for payment. You can make credit card payment online, through our video service at the time of your appointment.
7. Video therapy uses the Doxy.me platform, which is secure and HIPAA-compliant. Online payments are made through Stripe.com, a secure service, which allows us to take credit card payments without keeping your financial information in our office.