River North Pain Management Consultants Axel Vargas, M.D., Regional Anesthesiology and Interventional Pain Management.

Transcription

1 River North Pain Management Consultants Axel Vargas, M.D., Regional Anesthesiology and Interventional Pain Management. Rivernorth Pain Management Illinois Bone & Joint Institute Lake Shore Office One East Erie Street Suite # Ravine Way Suite # Northwestern Ave Chicago, Illinois Glenview, Illinois Chicago, Illinois Rivernorth Phone: (312) Fax: (312) Illinois Bone & Joint Institute Phone: (847) Fax: (847) Lake Shore Office Phone: (773) Fax: (773) Employee Manual Welcome to River North Pain Management Consultants. We are pleased that you have joined the team. We hope that your contractual agreement with us will be a rewarding, pleasant, and an educational experience for all of us. Please speak with us should you have any questions or issues which you feel are important. If you feel it is important, then it will be important to us. Any suggestions to make our practice grow and to work more efficiently will be greatly appreciated. The goal of River North Pain Management Consultants, S.C., is to deliver the best quality pain management care to our patients safely, efficiently, and as conveniently as possible for the patient. Of course, since this is a business, we need to make a profit, in which you will share via the wealth at River North Pain Management Consultants, S.C., s discretion throughout the year, in the form of bonuses and incentives. Locations and Referrals: River North Pain Management Consultants, S.C., is a registered medical services corporation. The business model is based upon patient referrals and the patient referrals are solely based on the discretion of the referring physician, i.e., he or she will refer to us based on their personal whim. Therefore is important to maintain such relationship with the referring physicians as they are the life-line of our business. We do this by promptly, professionally, cordially and unobtrusively taking good care of their patients, by promptly and accurately reporting back to them via Initial consultations reports, follow-up notes, Operative reports, etc., A happy, please patient will report back to the referring physician and this also will keep the lifeline alive. Some referring physicians like to be marketed at, i.e., be taking out to lunches and dinners, sent baskets on holydays etc.; similarly, to recruit new referring physicians, sometimes active marketing must be pursued as well. You will be asked to be involved in some of the marketing process as well. Doctor Vargas sees patients at one of the three following locations: Rivernorth, Glenview and Lake Shore. You will be actively involved in the coordination of these three locations. Languages: We use Spanish and English interchangeably in our practice, depending upon the primary language of the patient. Please address the patient in the language she/he speaks best. If you need assistance in translation, Dr. Vargas speaks Spanish, Italian, and understands Russian and French. Insurance Verifications: Without prior approval form the insurance company, we will all not get paid for our work. Therefore, prior to the first visit, please obtain insurance verification from the patient s insurance company for the planned procedure. Normally, you should ask for approval for four visits. The first visit typically is an Initial consultation followed by subsequent three follow-up visits will involve procedures (e.g. epidural steroid injections or facet joint injections). All these are billable and One East Erie Street Suite # Ravine Way Suite # Northwestern Ave Chicago, Illinois Glenview, Illinois Chicago, Illinois admin@rivernorthpmc.com

2 Page 2 of 6 theefore you need to reach the insurance company to obtain verification by 24 hours prior to the patients visit, please contact and ask either Tim or Keith Tobin at Medorizon billing company (800) , ttobin@medorizon.com for assistance. Dolly at the Lakeshore center and Edyta or Liz may help you with the insurance verification as well, since they have to verify it for their own centers. Please be sure that all patients are aware that some of our doctors are out of Network, and refer to the out of Network agreement for instructions. This is very important, since many of our patients will be quite disappointed when after the service is provided, they find out that the doctor was out of network. Make sure they are aware and sign the financial agreement and the Out of Network agreement. Office Hours and Schedule: Monday, Wednesday, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; the hours may vary. You will work as Dr. Vargas Personal Assistant/Secretary/Patient Coordinator/ and as such, you will need to manage his schedule accordingly. Organizational Issues: This is a small organization, so bureaucracy is minimal. The business of River North Pain Management consultants, S.C., will sink or fly depending how well we do this. Therefore, you need to look out for the interests of Dr. Vargas and therefore the River North Pain Management Consultants, S.C. One of your duties will be to compulsively keep track of the physician s schedule both personal and working schedules, so that at anytime you will be able to coordinate his schedule so that it can be access on the Web-based calendar at any given time or place.. This means that you will need to know the physician s planned vacations, meetings, or on any other activities; it is your responsibility to accurately know your physician s personal schedule as well so that you will not generate conflict with his and the patient schedule. You will be in charge of confirming, coordinating and logging on the Web-base calendar all the different schedules from the different locations, River North, Glenview and Lake Shore as well as your physician s personal schedule. Telephone, Fax, and Management: Since you will be traveling to different locations, you will carry a cell phone which will be committed exclusively to patient care, referral management scheduling and any other issues associated with the operations of River North Pain Management Consultants; therefore you will answer such number as Dr. Vargas s Assistant and conduct business via that cell number. Most of the referring physicians will instruct the patients to call either Rivernorth same day surgery or Lake Shore Center and they (the Centers) will in turn re-direct these patients to call you directly to arrange for a visit. Therefore you will need to be available on that number at all times. Patients will also call either of the offices/centers, and from there they will be again redirected to your cell phone number for further disposition, i.e., prescriptions, billing issues, etc. Pharmacies, insurance adjusters, attorneys, etc., also will call either office/center and will be redirected to that number as well. Please answer this phone line: Good morning (or good afternoon), this is River North Pain Management Consultants; my name is and I am Dr. Vargas assistant. How may I help you?

3 Page 3 of 6 If the call is an emergency, or from a physician, please contact the Dr. Vargas immediately via his cell phone. If he does not respond, please text-message him and leave a voice mail message. Dr. Vargas typically gives his cell phone number to all his patients as well. Dr. Vargas personal address is vaaxel@alumni.northwestern.edu; River North Pain Management Consultants, S.C., address, which should be given to patients, is: admin@rivernorthpmc.com. You will be given also an this is your business account. Please do not use this account for personal matters. Please check this account regularly, as you will be receiving patient s reports/ operative notes, and other chart documents you re your need to process accordingly. The password will be rivernorth. If for any reason you cannot access this , please ask us and we will help you. Dr. Vargas is in the process of opening an office in The Rivernorth area, which will house all the River North Pain Management Consultants, S.C., charts, and other patient data. Such office will be available around 05/09. For the most part, this office will act as a center of operations and typically no patients will be seen there. It will have fax, copier, etc., and will be the place where you will be working when not accompanying Dr. Vargas to the offices/centers. Appointment Scheduling Please try to schedule each new patient as soon as possible, do not wait since these patients are in pain and will go otherwise somewhere else. So try to put new patients in the first possible open time. Please allow minutes for the first appointment, and minutes for follow-up appointments. Please either fax the new patient questionnaire and ask the patient to completely fill it out prior to the first appointment, or have the patient fill the paperwork from our website ( This will make the patients visit more efficient for both the patient and physician. Also very important: we generally require a referral from a physician. Please ask the referring physician s office to fax a copy of the MRI and/or any office notes, other x-ray reports, etc. prior to the patient s first visit. Please ask the patient to call 24 hours in advance should she/he need to cancel or reschedule his/her appointment. This is typically done at Lake Shore Center; however River North is not easy to work with and they will give you hard time. You do not need to do any of this for Illinois Bone & Joint Institute Medical Records Management Again, make sure that you tell the patients to go to our web site and fill the necessary forms located under the Patient Information web page. They must either , mail or print and bring with them these filled forms, in order to expedite his or her visit. This is very important since most of the patients spend minutes filling forms and this will delay our entire schedule and that of the center. On the first visit, the patient will need to fill out a Patient Registration Form. Please make sure this form is completely filled out. Do not accept a form that has not been completely filled out, including emergency contact information. If the patient provides an address not in Chicago, please ask the patient if she/he has another Chicago address, and also record this.

4 Page 4 of 6 You are responsible for maintaining and organizing the medical records. At a minimum, we will need the following in each medical record: 1. Patient Registration Form 2. New Patient Questionnaire 3. Two blank progress notes 4. A Physical examination form 5. A consent for a procedure 6. Records from the referring physician's office, including an MRI or CT report. If you not have an MRI report one on the day the patient is scheduled to come for his first visit, please ask the physician if you should contact the referring physician's office to request that it be faxed to us. 7. Any correspondence from the patient, worker's compensation case worker, attorney, etc. 8. A signed and witnessed copy of any narcotics agreement. 9. A colored sheet to separate each of the visits Do not release a copy of the medical record to a third party without a signed release from the patient (we have forms pre-printed). If the patient desires a copy of his/her own medical record, no written release is necessary. Please make the patient a copy upon request. Please file the charts alphabetically, and label the charts, in the manner that they are currently labeled. Emergency Procedures Please inform yourself about the emergencies procedures of the River North Sameday Surgery Center, and follow them. Please ask Dr. Vargas or the manager of the center if you have any questions. At some point, you will be offered the opportunity to take a Basic Life Support (BLS) course. This is highly recommended. Front Desk Check Out Prior to the patient leaving the clinic (mostly at River North) after each visit, please make sure the patient: 1. Has a return appointment, unless the physician tells you that one is not needed. 2. Has signed and received a copy of the post-procedure instructions. Please file a copy in the patient's chart. 3. Has a copy of the appropriate teaching material. 4. Has his/her prescriptions (always ask the patient!). 5. Has finishing filling out the New Patient Questionnaire. Post-visit Patient Phone Calls On the day following a patients visit, only if s/he received an injection please the patient, or call the patient at home or work, to find out if there are any complications of the injection, if the patient has experienced any improvement in his/her pain, and if he/she has any questions. A form will be provided to guide you through these questions. Prior to making the call, you will need to know what procedure was performed. Please file a copy of the patient's responses in the medical record. You will need to make these phone calls Tuesday through Friday. We normally do not see pain patients on Fridays.

5 Page 5 of 6 Patient Billing and Collections These services are performed by Medorizon. Please refer all patient billing and collection inquiries to Tim or Keith Tobin at (800) , ttobin@medorizon.com. If a patient has a question or is unhappy about his or her bill, remember, the physician is a physician and not a business person, so is your responsibility to make sure that the patient understand that and refer them to Medorizon. You may say something like: Dr. Vargas is not involved in the business part of your care, so please call Mr. Tim Tobin or Mr. Keith Tobin at. Accounting and Bookkeeping Please ask each patient on the first visit if his/her insurance requires co-pay. If so please collect this fee up front. Please record this a make sure the money gets to the physician account. We accept cash, checks, and credit cards. Narcotics Policy At the discretion of the pain management physician, patients receiving prescriptions for an opioid (narcotic pain medication) will be asked to sign an agreement. Essentially, this agreement states that the patient agrees to take only the pain medication and dose prescribed, to obtain this medication from a single pharmacy (the patient provides us with this information), not to obtain pain medication from other physicians, and not to transfer this medication or prescription to another person. No early refills will be authorized. If a patient is found to have violated this agreement, we will try to determine if the patient understands the agreement. The patient will be given a second chance. If the patient violates the agreement a second time, then we will no longer write prescriptions of opioids (narcotics) for that patient. A signed and witnessed copy of this agreement will be provided to the patient. The original agreement will be filed in the patient's medical record. Vacations, sick days, salary, personal days off: For the present, while you are an independent contractor, we will follow the policies of the independent contractor agreement. Your starting salary will be of $15 per hour (paid either once a month or bi-weekly) during the initial 3-month probation period and may be increased at the discretion of River North Pain Management Consultants, S.C., thereafter. Similarly, at the discretion of River North Pain Management Consultants, S.C., you will be receiving incentive bonuses without previous notice, all based on productivity and performance. For the present, you will not have paid vacation and will take vacation only when Dr. Vargas takes vacation; however, this may change at the discretion of River North Pain Management Consultants, S.C. If you need to call in sick, please notify Dr. Vargas directly. If you, your spouse, or your children are sick, we do not expect you to come in to work that day; however you might be ask you to perform some tasks from home via , phone etc., if you are able to do so without endangering your recovery. If you or your immediate family has any medical issues which need attention, will do our best to assist you promptly. We need you to stay healthy, as our team is not fully capable without you. If you need a personal day off to take care of important business, this will be granted, in accordance with the policies of River North Pain management Consultants bylaws. We do have

6 Page 6 of 6 slow days, so if you need to take a personal day off, please try to do so on a day which has less clinical activity. For any questions, please contact us. Welcome aboard! We are glad you are part of our team! Revised 3/22/09 AV/SF/yn