Office Policies

Appointment No Show/Cancellation

Office/Teletherapy appointments can not be changed to phone consults on the same day as your appointment.

We respect your time, and we hope you’ll respect ours. If you are 10+ minutes late for your 30, 60 or 90 appointment you may be charged as a “No Show” and have to reschedule.

A 24 hour notice by text, phone or email is respectfully required to cancel or reschedule appointments. Less than 24 hours notice will result in a late cancellation fee being charged to your account.

Details about No Show/Late Cancellation Fees

Medication Scheduling

When medications are first prescribed, or if there were changes to your medication(s), Dr. Heithaus usually requires a follow up in 1 month.

Patients on maintenance therapy will need follow up visits scheduled every 3 – 6 months depending on your medication plan. Make sure you know what your medication plan is so that you may schedule appointments accordingly.

If it has been 12 months since your last appointment you will need to schedule a 60 minute office visit to ensure your history can be updated and all concerns can be addressed.

Prescriptions

Use these guidelines to ensure you don’t run out of Medications between visits. Additional prescriptions will not be provided beyond what was scheduled during your last appointment. 

• Know your prescription schedule. If you don’t know, ask Dr. Heithaus or email frontdesk@drheithaus.com after your appointment
• Discuss non-stimulant medications during your visit, even if you have refills still available
• Patients are responsible for scheduling their follow-up appointments before running out of medication
• All prescriptions are electronically sent to your pharmacy on the day of your appointment. These prescriptions are ON FILE in your pharmacy profile and can be filled every 28 days
• Patients need to call the pharmacy to request the prescription ON FILE be filled every 28 days. If you do not have a prescription ON FILE, then it’s probably time for your next appointment

=> Other helpful hints for Prescriptions:

• Check with your insurance to see if home delivery or 90 day prescriptions are allowed. If so, please let Dr Heithaus know during your appointment. This will save you making monthly trips to the pharmacy!
• If you need to change pharmacies alert our office 3-5 business days before your next scheduled medication needs to be filled

How to determine when to schedule your next office visit

Stimulant prescriptions supply you medication for 30 days. The prescriptions themselves can be filled every 28 days (unless you’ve provider authorization for an early release). If your medication is scheduled for two (2) months schedule your follow-up within 54-56 days. If your medication is scheduled for three (3) months schedule your follow-up within 80-84 days.

Prescription Refills/Renewals

Dr. Heithaus will not provide additional Stimulant medication prescriptions beyond what was scheduled at your last appointment

• Non stimulant refill request between appointments will need to be approved by Dr, Heithaus based on circumstance, and will incur a $50 per medication charge to renew the prescription for 30 days.
• Allow 3 to 5 office days for all medication refill requests, although most refills will take less than 48 hours
• Non-Stimulant Medication Refills: Ask your pharmacy to FAX a Refill Request for non-stimulant medications to 206.426.2686. The office does not accept refill requests directly from Patients.
• Dr Heithaus does not provide maintenance/on-going prescriptions for Benzodiazepines (Xanax, lorazepam, clonazepam, diazepam) or Ambien. Patients need to see their Primary Care Provider for these types of medication prescriptions

Rx Emergencies

If there should be an emergency where you require a refill of a non stimulant medication, have your pharmacy fax a Refill Request marked “URGENT” to 206.350.6697.  If you’ve already picked up Schedule II medication, legally you cannot receive another prescription for 28 days. This includes if medication was left at home while you’re traveling, if the medication has been lost or spilled, etc. Stimulant refills cannot be approved for these situations.

Changing Pharmacies

Please notify our office at least 3 business days before your next fill date and provide the Pharmacy’s name, address and phone number.

Accommodation Letters / Paperwork

You may at times need a letter from your physician to support specific work or school accommodations, having a therapy pet or for traveling. Dr. Heithaus will gladly complete forms during your regular follow up visit. If a form or letter is needed prior to a scheduled follow up a $75 fee will be incurred. Please allow 2 weeks for letters to be completed and returned to you.

Miscellaneous Fees

• Missed Appointment or Late Cancellation fees can be found HERE
• $50 – any medication Prior Authorizations that requires more than 15 minutes to complete
• $75 – Accommodation Letters or other paperwork not completed during your scheduled office visit 
• $50 per stimulant medication that has Refill Requests submitted between visits
• $50 – Returned Check “insufficient funds”

To avoid incurring these fees, please ensure that we have up-to-date Insurance information, you bring necessary forms/paperwork to your scheduled office visit and/or you are aware of your medication plan before you leave the office.

Traveling

If you are not in town to pick up a scheduled prescription, but will run out of medication while gone, contact the office.  In most cases, an “early release” approval for your prescription can be requested. Notify the office at least 3 business days to complete this request.

Phone Consultations

Established patients are able to schedule follow up visits via telephone. In-office appointments will be expected after three (3) phone consultations. Phone consultations are $140 for 30 minutes or $75.00 for 10 minutes. Phone consultations are billed directly to the patient, not your insurance.

If interested contact the office to see if you’re eligible to schedule follow ups by phone.

Email/Text Consultations

Consultations via email/text are not offered in this office. If you find that you need to clarify your current treatment plan or have a more complex question regarding your treatment or medication, you may email the office with detailed but concise list of questions pertaining to your current treatment schedule/plan. Requests for changes or additions to your current medication schedule will require you to schedule a follow up appointment.

Authorization to Release Medical Records

A Release of Medical Records must be completed, signed and returned to our office to have your medical records sent to another healthcare provider or to share information between healthcare providers. Please allow three weeks for processing and forwarding your records to a new healthcare provider.