For our consultants
Our goal is to build on the strong relationships we have established with our
network of trusted consultants in order to provide consistently high quality
care for mutual patients in this ever-changing healthcare environment.
Commitment:
We will stay involved in the patient's care even after referring him or her
to a specialist, to coordinate plans of care, ordering of diagnostic tests,
or further referring to other specialists. We will also help communicate
with patients to help them make decision for the best plan of care.
Accessibility:
In addition to our office staff that can provide you with records and other
information during regular office hours, at least one of us is on call 24
hours a day. For most of the time, our patients' records are
accessible to us within a few keystrokes.
Knowledge:
By knowing the medical history of our patients, and by virtue of our
training as internists, we will be an invaluable resource to you in
treating patients with complex medical problems.
When we initiate a referral to our consultants, a referral letter
outlining the patient's problems and objective of the referral
is sent to the consultant, along with the appropriate chart notes.
Patient is instructed to call consultant's office to schedule appointment.
If the referral is of urgent nature, we will call the prospective
consultant's office to communicate the need, and also to
give the information to consulting doctor.
If an authorization from the patient's insurance company is required,
we will submit the request at this time, usually within 24 hours.
We communicate with the insurance companies either by
fax or via secure internet assess.
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We do not receive direct confirmation of the referral from
the insurance company, which is usually mailed to the patient
and the prospective consultant. Therefore, we will only be
able to tell you whether or not we have submitted the
request to insurance, but not the status of the approval of the request.
We will do the appropriate follow up of the patients according
to the medical conditions, or the plan established with our consultants.
We will coordinate the care plans when appropriate, if multiple care
plans and options and/or specialists are involved in patient's care.
We would appreciate your timeliness in seeing our patients as appropriate
for the nature of the referral, and we have been blessed by having been
able to do so with the committed specialists in our community.
We would appreciate timely feedback, by phone, fax, mail, or other
electronic means, as appropriate for the nature of the conditions,
to ensure continuity of care.
Occasionally, a consultant may determine that subsequent care is
needed by yet another specialist. For continuity of care, and
insurance purposes, it is advantageous to all concerned for the
consultant to confer with patient's primary care
physician in choosing the specialist.
If you have patients with complicated medical problems requiring
internal medicine consult, either as out-patient or at
Mount Hood Medical Center, we would be glad to be your consultants;
Or for your patients that need a primary care physician in the
Gresham area, your referral to us would be appreciated as well.
Timely, effective and efficient communication is extremely
important to us, and certainly to you as our consultants as well.
Currently, we fax the letters and notes to our consultants,
whenever possible. Unless otherwise requested, the faxed
copy is the only one you will receive.
Since all our records are electronic, your final report
on a diskette in WordPerfect or other type of word processor
on PC format, would facilitate its entry by our staff and be
greatly appreciated. Fax softwares that fax directly out
of the PC give much higher quality fax, and can usually
substitute for the hard copy.
In providing educational service to our patients through our
website, we would be happy to include links to our consultants'
websites on the page devoted to useful links. If you have
established a website, and would like to have our patients
know about it, please send us an e-mail including the URL to
your home page. If our website may provide beneficial
information to your audience, please let us know, we would
be happy to have a link on your site.
