New Patient Information
Welcome! We appreciate your interest in our practice.
We see patients by referral from another physician. We require this because 1) we want to make sure that this is the right specialty for your medical concern, 2) we want to obtain any previously developed evaluation and treatment information as well as information about your general health, and 3) to facilitate coordination of care with other members of your care team.
Before we schedule your first appointment, we will need to receive medical records or a letter of introduction from the referring physcian.
Once we schedule the appointment, we ask that you fill out and submit the forms included in the "Patient Forms" section of this website. Submitting the forms in advance of your appointment serves to confirm that you intend to keep the appointment and will speed things up when you arrive.
The forms you submit should include: 1) New Patient Informaton Form, and 2) Privacy Policies Acknowledgement Form.
Please call if you have any questions. We look forward to meeting you!
General Practice Informaton
Prescription Refills
Prescription refills should be obtained by contacting your pharmacy and leaving a message regarding the specifics of the request that their message center will require. You should contact them even if the medication bottle says that no refills remain. The pharmacy has our fax number and will send us a request that contains specific information that we need to fill and record the refill transaction. Please do not contact us directly requesting the refill as we do need this information from them. All refill requests received by us by 3 p.m. are acted on the same day unless you are requesting a monitored medication and are late either for lab monitoring or an office visit or if additional research regarding the refill is needed. "Scheduled medications" that by state law require us to log information in to the Texas Prescription Monitoring Program will generally require 3 business days for processing by us and your pharmacy. Some pharmacies require 24-48 hours to get the information to us so please plan ahead when deciding when to request the refill. We are unable to refill medications after hours or on weekends as Dr. Sayers or his on-call covering physician will not have your medical record to refer to.
Specialty pharmacy requests (for biologics and other expensive medication) often present special challenges for you and our office personnel due to their overly complicated processes and long hold times when calls are necessary. Our medical assistants do their best to problem solve with your pharmacy. In order for them to be available for ongoing patient care in the office and incoming calls for urgent medical issues, they are not able to spend excessive time on hold with your pharmacy. To expedite troubleshooting with your pharmacy, please make the initial contact and if they require additional information from us, they may contact us at 512-454-3631, or provide us with a fax number, web address with contact link, or email address for us to contact them. In order to serve all of our patient's needs in a timely basis, we are not able to wait on hold for for more that 10 minutes for pharmacy calls.
After Hours Emergencies
24/7 emergency coverage for our practice by Dr. Sayers and his on-call partners is available only for urgent problems that cannot wait for regular office hours. After hours calls are subject to telemedicine visit charges. Dr. Sayers or the doctor on call may be reached by calling the medical exchange at 458-1121. The doctor will not have immediate access to your medical record and will be limited in their ability to respond with a comprehensive diagnosis and treatment plan over the phone. If you have a true medical emergency, please do not attempt to contact the doctor and wait for a response. Proceed immediately to the nearest emergency room.
After hours calls to the physician on call are subject to Telemedicine charges.
Medical Records
By law, medical records related to your care are property of this practice. As such, we are responsible for making them available as well as protecting your confidentiality. Transfer of medical records or obtaining copies for your personal use are covered by a variety of statutes that we are required to follow. We receive several requests for copies and transfers of records every day. To accommodate these requests we have trained personnel paid to perform these tasks. Requests for copies of medical records should be made by submitting our Release of Information forms. Fees for copying records are set in accordance with rules established by the Texas Medical Board and other governing entities. For more specific information, select the Release of Information tab.
Insurance Forms, Requested Letters, Prior Authorizations and Complicated Appeals to Your Insurance Carrier
You may have a need for Dr. Sayers to compose a letter regarding your condition or treatment for a variety of reasons. Employers or disability insurance carriers may require that you obtain certain letters or forms from us. Additionally, your health insurance may request reports or extensive forms filled out to help you obtain certain benefits such as payment for expensive medications or treatments. All of these requests are personally reviewed, researched and composed by Dr. Sayers after hours or on weekends to ensure their accuracy. Producing these documents is generally not paid for by the requesting entity. We do charge for production of most of these documents. We will let you know what the charges are for the service requested by you or regarding you by a third party.
A special challenge occurs with second level appeals for a medication or service for which your insurance carrier requires Dr. Sayers to personally participate in a "peer to peer" appeal. This process requires Dr. Sayers to reserve a time slot on his schedule normally reserved for patient care to participate in a telephone interview with a designated healthcare representative of their choosing. When this level of appeal is required, we will let you know. We charge $125 for this service and will let you decide ahead of time if you want us to act on your behalf to perform this service. Please be aware that we are not able to bill your insurance company for this service and that our performing this service does not guarantee that they will approve it.
No show/Late cancellations
Like any business we work within time and financial constraints to provide good service. We understand that we all forget appointments or other unexpected commitments come up that prevent us from keeping an appointment at the last minute. Unfortunately, patients not showing up for appointments or cancelling too late for us to fill their spot presents us with an unfair economic penalty and makes it difficult to see other patients who are waiting to be seen. As such, we will invoice you $50 to partially offset such events. To avoid this fee, which is not covered by your insurance, we ask that you give us at least 24 hours notice if you need to cancel or change an appointment time. Additionally, repeated no shows compromise our ability to provide good care for you. It is our policy to end our relationship with patients who have had three or more no show/late cancellation events at our office.
Parking We offer free, surface parking. Seton Medical Center, adjacent to our building is undergoing major renovations and has shown little regard for our parking spaces. If you have trouble finding a parking space, there is free valet parking available at the south entrance of our building.