Premier Primary Care Medicine

Thank you for letting us know about this. I am sorry to hear that your visit with us was not the positive experience that we aim for here at Premier Primary Care Medicine. I have investigated your case further to best answer your inquiries. For many years we did not have a no-show fee policy but in the recent years the no-show rates have gone up exponentially. There were some days where a provider's schedule was full when the morning started and by the end of the day half of the patients did not show up. These events have increased in frequency to the point it was hurting our business and therefore it forced us to start the $35 no-show policy. We did make it a flexible policy where if you call us 1 business day prior to your appointment time, we do not charge you. Your statement mentions "sick patients" but in your case, the appointment was not for a sick visit but for a routine follow up visit. Also, you mentioned "unforeseen circumstances" as the reason for not making the appointment. The reason you gave us on today's appointment was that you slept in because of time change. However, I would not consider this "unforeseen" because time change occurred 2 days ago and there were numerous announcements on the news and on social media about the time change. Also, today's smartphones automatically update the time for you so it is difficult to accept the fact that this was unforeseen. Also, you complained to the receptionist that you have never heard of a no-show fee policy and that you have never signed such a policy. We have investigated the matter further and have found 3 documents (one new patient registration form and 2 follow up appointment consent forms) with your signature on them acknowledging that you understood the no-show fee policy. We will be happy to show these to you when you come in for your next appointment. Also, this was the second such no-show event on your account. Despite all of these findings, we have made a decision to forgive one of the no-show events and only charge you for the other one. Lastly, you made a statement about why we focus on money more than patient's health. I would like to reply to you with a story. Our office was initially managed by a different company. However, they went out of business in 2014 due to financial difficulties. Our office was losing money each year instead of making profit so all the doctors and the staff of this office lost their jobs. We had 2 choices at that point: dissolve the business which would negatively impact all the patients we had been serving for the previous 14 years, or restart the business under new ownership. We chose the latter. When we changed management in 2015 we had to make some changes so that we didn't become bankrupt again. In our investigation we discovered that one of the reasons we became bankrupt was due to poor collections. So one of the rules we made was that patients with balances owed must pay their balance before they were seen for their next appointment. So far, we have been able to stay out of bankruptcy by following this and some other management decisions. So yes, we agree with you: health comes before finances. However, if we ignore the latter, it does negatively impact the health of our patients because if this office goes bankrupt again and ceases to exist, it will negatively impact the health of our patients, some who have developed a trust relationship with their providers for over 20 years. I hope this helps explain why these type of collections policies exist even though they are polices that we prefer not having at all.