Billing for Portal Messages and Phone Calls

The way we deliver health care is evolving to give patients and families more readily available access to services.  Throughout the pandemic we have seen a tremendous increase in the number of portal email messages and phone calls, and a decrease in office visits.  We are fine with this because these modalities are often appropriate and helpful.  Many times they cannot substitute for an in-person visit.

We have been rapidly adapting to this changing landscape of care delivery.  We like to be available to you as quickly as possible through online communications.  Please be patient if our responses sometimes take more than a day because of schedule conflicts.

The healthcare system has not evolved its payment plans to reflect the shift in care to more online services.  We wanted to let you know that we will be submitting billing to your insurers for portal messages and phone calls based on the time we spend attending to them.  Many or most of you will not see any of this billing, as Medicaid will not pass it along to patients, and many of our patients are in insurance programs that pay us a monthly management fee instead of fee for service.  If your insurers do not cover these bills, we apologize – please feed back to them that they should pay for these services.  If our billing creates a financial hardship for you, please call us to discuss.

Thank you for understanding.