Patient Information

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Live Oak Medicine draws routine labs in the office. Burnet County has no national lab draw stations. By contrast, draw stations such as those for Clinical Pathology Laboratory, LabCorp and Quest are common in Austin.

With hundreds of different insurers and plans, it makes sense that what works for one person’s plan may complicate another person’s care. Moreover, some of the local labs are very expensive. If you have complete coverage with no deductible, expense may not matter. Yet the same decision might be financially devastating for someone else. Your insurer likely has strong feeling about where you have blood drawn. Insurers usually have strong feelings about where blood is sent for processing even when drawn in the office. Know your lab benefits. Live Oak Medicine can send labs to CPL, LabCorp and Quest.

We ask patients to make a lab consultation appointment with their provider when labs are due. These are routine visits where you meet with your provider and decide which labs are necessary after review of your meds, general health, chronic health problems and preventative needs. You will be charged a copay and a routine visit will be billed to your insurer. This visit will not be billed as a preventative visit.

You are welcome to have your blood drawn wherever you prefer if a different option better suits your needs. We are delighted to generate an order for an outside lab draw at your regular visit. In addition, if we decide during the course of a visit that labs are necessary and can be drawn in our office, we will draw blood at that time.

Decisions about which labs to draw are more complicated than most patients think. Some offices handle decisions by sending everyone with the same general problem or type of medication for the same panel of labs every few months. This leads to more visits and unnecessary testing. We believe that this “thoughtless” approach wastes your time and the nation’s health care dollar.

Ideally, refills are taken care of at the time of a visit. This procedure gives physicians the ability to ensure the safety, necessity, efficacy and appropriateness of your medicines. Lack of refills on a medication typically suggests that it is time for a follow-up appointment. In rare cases, refill requests can be made through your pharmacy. Please allow at least 3 business days from the time we receive the pharmacy request for the prescription to be approved or denied.

Ideally these are reviewed at the time of a visit. You can expect to receive a copy of your results with the physician’s comments by mail in a few weeks. Be assured that critically abnormal results are called to the physician. In many cases, we will contact you to schedule a visit to discuss abnormal labs. You should hear from us or the radiology facilities about all test results. Never assume that “no news is good news.”

Please schedule follow-up appointments (or at least plan them) at the conclusion of a visit. Unanticipated or “acute” appointments can be scheduled by calling (830) 693-2005 between 8 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. That way we can work you in or triage your care. Multiple slots are left open each day for patients needing to be seen acutely. We make every effort to accommodate patients’ needs. We have hired a second person to answer the phones so that these requests can be handled in a timely manner. If you are scheduling an appointment to review lab or x-ray results, allow at least 2 weeks to assure that your results are available. Non-urgent visits may take a week or more. Wellness visits may require a month or more.

The Medical Board considers it inappropriate and dangerous for a physician to prescribe medication, diagnose and treat without physically assessing a patient. Additionally, it should be understood that the office receives hundreds of calls daily. Most of these calls are best handled by scheduling a visit. Leaving a message with the staff as an alternative typically delays care. It should also be clearly understood that we are unable to function are a “walk-in” clinic or emergency room, and patients are strongly discouraged from walking up to our window to communicate with the office. Such action leads to less efficient delivery of care.

Please understand that most insurance companies require authorization for referrals, imaging studies, and certain prescriptions. This is a complex, time consuming process for our staff, and may take several days (or weeks) to accomplish. We will handle these issues in the most expedient fashion possible. Patients frustrated by this process are encouraged to contact their insurance company and complain about this unnecessary process. It is our opinion that prior authorization is a strategy used by insurance companies to control cost at the expense of timely patient care.

Please bring all pill bottles (the actual bottles) to each visit. An accurate medicate list is critical to your care. A brief written list of questions will ensure that you get the most out of each office visit. Multiple issues/concerns may not be able to be addressed at a single visit, and a follow-up appointment may be required. Annual exams should be devoted to disease prevention and physical exam. Chronic and acute health issues typically require an additional visit.

It is our preference for patients to have labs drawn during a visit at Live Oak Medicine. This gives the physician an opportunity to review current medications and previous labs, to tell the patient personally which labs will be drawn and to plan follow up. These visits are brief, and directed toward drawing the appropriate lab panel. The physician meets with the patient, a co-pay is collected, and an office visit is billed.

Some patients may desire to have labs drawn elsewhere. This is acceptable, but only if a lab slip is created at the time of a regular office visit. Lab slips cannot be generated by phone. It should also be understood that labs drawn at Seton are usually more expensive and in most cases apply to the hospital deductible, not the lab deductible. For insurances with a high deductible, hospital labs can lead to substantial out of pocket expense. Know your lab benefits. Check with your insurer to see which labs can be used. We send labs to LabCorp and CPL.

If you have questions concerning your bill, please call Medorizon (our billing company) at (888)419-8176. If Medorizon requires information from our office to clarify that situation, they will contact us.

Failing to cancel a scheduled appointment 24 hours prior to the visit or not showing up for an appointment will result in a $25 (regular visit) $50 (annual exam, new patient ) charge. Patients arriving more than 15 minutes late will be asked to reschedule.

Patients will need to provide their insurance cards and driver’s licenses at every visit. Please also understand that by law several documents will need to be filled out at the time of care. Please allow at least 10 minutes to complete the check-in process.

Insurance co-pays are due at the time of appointment. To defer collection of co-pays is a violation of our managed care contracts.

There is a $25 charge for all return checks.

It is very important to us that our patients have 24 hour access to a physician. If you call the office any time in which the office is not open, the number to our answering service is given in the message. Please use this number to contact the physician on call for urgent health care advice.

8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday thru Friday. Phones are closed between noon and 1:00 p.m. and at 4:30 p.m. daily.

We accept cash, checks, MasterCard and Visa.