Office Policies

Our commitment to you, our patient, is to provide quality healthcare services. We are also committed to the health of our practice. With these considerations, the following are the financial and business policies of our practice.

The office hours:                                                                                                                      Monday 9am-5pm                                                                                                                  Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 7:30am-5pm                                                                             Friday 9am-3pm.  

INSURANCE 

We are members of most, but not all insurance plans. We are out of network with: Devoted (HMO), Doctor's Plan (UHC), Humana (HMO), Kaiser Permanente, Medicaid/Health First Colorado and Optum/UHC HMO.  We are happy to accept out-of-network benefits' usual and customary charges.  Please contact your insurance company if you have any questions concerning your benefits. You must present your insurance card with every visit, or your appointment will be rescheduled. 

Except for certain non-covered services, we will submit our charges to your insurance company. Any deductible, co-insurance amounts, co-payments, or “denied” services will be your responsibility. If payment is not received from the insurance carrier or other responsible party in 90 days, you will be billed directly. Please be advised that we cannot waive copays, deductibles, coinsurance, or non-covered services amounts, defined as patient responsibility, under the terms of our contract with your health insurance. We do our best to prior authorize, verify coverage and benefits for you, but it is impossible for our office to provide anything but estimates, until your claim has processed. Should you wish to determine the benefits to which you are entitled, under the provisions of your contract, we recommend you call your insurance company to obtain the precise information about the extent of your coverage, before receiving any treatment and/or products. All quotes from insurance are estimates only. 

Our office requires a major Credit Card On File for all of our patients. 

APPOINTMENTS

Your appointment time has been allotted only for times ranging from 20-30 minutes, for existing and new patient consults. Unfortunately, with respecting everyone’s schedules, if you have multiple medical issues, you may need to schedule additional appointments.

• If you are late for your appointment, we may need to reschedule. Please allow 15 additional minutes for appointment check-in.
• A fee of $50 will be billed to you for NO SHOW appointments and/or LATE CANCELLATION appointments (Not cancelled within 24 hours of the appointment time, during business hours). Surgery or Procedure appointment No Show, Late Cancellations will incur a $150 fee.  Patients with repeat occurrences may be excused from the practice. Cancellations for Monday appointments must be received by noon the preceding Friday, during business hours. Because of the additional time we need for your 1st appointment, we will not reschedule a missed NEW PATIENT appointment, for no show or a late cancellation. So please call us to reschedule or cancel during business hours. We will work with you as best as we can.
• If required by your insurance, obtaining a referral is your responsibility and must be obtained prior to your appointment. If you need assistance, please notify the Front Office and we will do our best to help you. However, if the referral is not obtained, you have a choice of rescheduling the appointment or paying for your visit.

MEDICATION

Dr. Mechanik participates in the Colorado Prescription Drug Monitoring program. If you receive a prescription for controlled substance (narcotic drug) from our office and fill that prescription at a pharmacy in Colorado, certain identifying prescription information, including name of patient, will be entered into a secure database maintained by the Colorado Prescription Drug Monitoring program. State law requires pharmacies to report information about controlled substance prescriptions filled to the prescription drug monitoring database. Certain persons associated with health care providers, law enforcement, and health system licensing may obtain access to this information for official and secure purposes in accordance with the law.

PRIVACY POLICY

At Colorado Foot Institute, we are dedicated to protecting your right to privacy. Disclosure of your health information or its use for any purpose, other than for the purposes of treatment, obtaining payment, or supporting the day-to-day health care operations of the practice, requires your specific written authorization. Please know that this concerns your personal health records, and can only be signed by you or your legal representative (such as a Power of Attorney, Guardian, or Conservator).

We do not share patient information outside of our office without patient permission. When using our website, we use the information that you provide for such purposes as responding to your requests, improving our website, and communicating with you. Like many websites, we may use cookies or other information on your computer to help the pages of our website load faster for repeat visitors. We do not track user behavior. We may send you emails or special offers from time to time. Any such emails will have an unsubscribe function to allow you to remove yourself from future emails.

TEXT MESSAGING / SMS 

By subscribing to our SMS notifications, users agree to receive promotional, transactional, and informational text messages from COLORADO FOOT INSTITUTE. These messages may include updates, updates, exclusive offers, order confirmations, and other related content

By opting into our SMS program, patients consent to receive recurring automated promotional and personalized text messages from COLORADO FOOT INSTITUTE at the phone number provided during the opt-in process. Consent is not a condition of purchase.  SMS consent and phone numbers collected/captured for SMS purposes will not be shared, sold or disclosed with any third parties, or any other individual for any type of marketing purposes, or affiliate marketing. The frequency of SMS messages will vary based on patient interaction with your services. 

Standard message and data rates may apply. Patients are advised to check with their mobile service provider for details.

Users can opt out of receiving SMS messages at any time. To unsubscribe, reply “STOP” to any text message received. After opting out, you will no longer receive SMS messages unless you choose to opt back in.

AI SCRIBE  

AI scribe is an artificial intelligence (AI tool that assists us during patient encounters by generating clinical notes based on our conversations).  This tool allows us to focus more on you, the patient, and less on computer documentation.  The AI tool does not interact with you directly.  It merely listens to the conversation and creates a summary.  AI Scribe is a tool that listens to the conversation during the visit and generates a written summary or “note” based on that conversation.  This note is then reviewed and approved by Dr. Mechanik  We want to assure you that your privacy is our utmost priority.  The AI tool adheres strictly to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance guidelines to assure your data is secured and protected.  Your participation is completely voluntary.