Effective January 1st, 2018, our consultative services will be cash-only.
The move to direct cash-only payments for our consultative services means we will no longer be accepting any third-party payer “reimbursement” for any consultative services rendered. This change affects only our consultative services; we will continue to accept third-party payer “reimbursement” for all of our primary-care pediatric services.
This is a big change, and we understand it will be upsetting to some. The short answer as to why—which frankly should come as no surprise—is that third-party payers do not value consultative work, especially consultative work by a primary-care physician. The notion that a primary-care physician would have any speciality knowledge/training that requires a consultation setting to provide is insulting to a third-party payer. To third-party payers, primary-care facilities and physicians are patient mills: run as many patients through the front door as possible, write a script, and run them back out the exit. To get Dr Dickerson out of the mill, to allow her the time to see patients in need of these services—while keeping the practice financially viable—Dr Dickerson must be paid for her consultative work. This cannot happen with third-party payer “reimbursement.”
The most exciting aspect of this change is we will again be open to new consultative patients.
Please review our consultative services page to learn more about our consultative services, how consultative services are defined, and to learn what this means to both new and existing consultative patients. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact our office.