Welcome.  HFM exists to serve you, the patient. This goal is best explained in “Our Valuesâ€. What follows are the “nuts and bolts†of what you need to know quickly to make our service to you practical.
URGENCIES. Do not call us for a life-threatening situation. Call 911. Otherwise, we do our best to help you avoid emergency services. We guarantee same or next business day appointments to
established patients who are ill or injured. Knowing that, we expect after hours calls to be rare.
If you must reach your HFM provider, call our REGULAR phone number, 704 A DOC (2362). A
telephone answering machine will give you instructions on reaching the answering service. Please, turn off any forced caller ID (press *87). Call again if not contacted within 30 minutes.
If you know you must be seen on an evening HFM is not open or on a weekend, consider one of the many Urgent Care facilities for all but life threatening emergencies. They are not an adequate
substitute for ongoing care by a team that really knows you, but they will certainly help when HFM is not available. For children the Mary Bridge Pediatric Urgent Care at 3504 12 th Ave NE, Olympia, WA 98506, phone: (360) 252-3845 is an excellent resource. They are open most evenings till 10:00 pm.
CAPITAL MEDICAL CENTER. CMC is our preferred hospital and Emergency Room. It is geographically close to HFM. Its services are vital to our patients. Patients may select any hospital or urgent care they wish.
THE WEB. We like it. We encourage its use. You can ask questions about a recent visit by an unrestricted and not specially encrypted communication link on the web site. This is the easiest communication link. It is only as private as your regular email (which in practice is very private for most of us because nobody really cares to look at it).
EXPECT TO PAY US. We share only the name of an excellent local bank. We simply will not compete with lending institutions and provide credit, thus having to raise our charges to all other patients. We will bill insurance companies, but if your co-pay is known expect to pay that at the time of service. If a one-day charge exceeds $300.00 (very rare) we will work out monthly payments. Those paying in full by cash or check or credit/debit card, will receive a 30% discount. We expect payment for any residuals after insurance on the first statement. There is a $10.00 rebilling fee for each subsequent statement. We may send debts to collection after only one warning letter. .
INSURANCE. We fully participate in most major insurance programs (Regence, Premera, Aetna, Uniform, First Choice Network, etc.). We participate in Labor and Industries. With rare exceptions we accept new DSHS children (not adults) only through Molina and Medicare only through Physicians of Southwest WA. We accept TriCare for the family of active duty service personnel. For some insurers we are not directly contracted and for ALL third party situations (Auto Accidents, Home Owners or Business Owners coverage) payment must be at time of service. We will provide you with the necessary papers to seek reimbursement.
READ THE PRIVACY POLICY. Your ever-helpful federal government requires that we inform you in detail about how we handle your medical information. The HIPPA law of 1996 mostly codifies what physicians have done for thousands of years while carving out exceptions to your protection for the government. There are copies in the reception area. It is on our web site here. You may request your own copy in print. Read it.