What To Bring
1. Driver’s license
2. Valid and current insurance card(s)
3. List of current medications
4. Any pertinent medical information that relates to the current visit such as biopsy reports, progress notes from other physicians, etc
5. For minors (children under the age of 18) please bring your childs social security number for insurance purposes only.
Cancellation & No Show Policy
If you are unable to keep a scheduled appointment, we ask that you give our practice at least 24 hours notice. Timely cancellation of your appointment allows us to manage our schedule efficiently, ultimately improving our availability to patients. Your appointment time is a reservation and failure to cancel within 24 hours will regretfully result in a $25 no show charge for routine clinic appointments and a $100 charge for your surgery appointment.
Treatment of Minors
An effort should be made by a parent or legal guardian to accompany dependents under the age of 18. All services rendered to minors will be the financial responsibility of the adult accompanying the patient at the time of service.
Insurances We Accept
- AetnaAllied Benefit Systems
- Anthem BCBS
- Assurant Health
- Baptist Healthcare
- BeechStreet
- Bluegrass Family Health
- CenterCare Plans
- CHAMPVA
- Cigna
- Coventry Health Care
- Dart Management Corp
- First Health Network
- GEHA
- Golden Rule
- GreatWest
- Health Cost Solutions
- Humana
- Mail Handler’s Benefit Plan
- Med Ben
- Medicare
- Medicare Advantage Plans (including
- Aetna, BCBS, Bluegrass, Humana,
- UHC and Gateway)
- Meritain
- Nippon
- North America
- PCHS
- PPO Next
- Principal Life
- Multiplan
- Rural Health Carriers
- Today’s Option (Pyramid Life)
- Tricare for Life
- UMR Underwriters
- United Healthcare (UHC)
- VA Tennessee Valley Healthcare
- Wellborn Health Plans
Test Results
Tests such as lab/blood work, imaging studies (e.g. chest x-ray, CT scan, etc) and bacterial/viral skin cultures are routinely ordered at Bowling Green Dermatology. These samples or studies are performed at other facilities and the reports must be sent to Bowling Green Dermatology after completion. It can take up to 7 to 14 days to receive these reports.
Biopsies are skin samples taken during the visit and are used to diagnose skin cancer or identify the cause of a rash. The procedure is done at Bowling Green Dermatology and the specimen is sent to a board-certified dermatopathologist for microscopic review. The results can take up to 2 weeks. You will be notified of the results once Dr. Cowan has reviewed them and developed a treatment plan, if necessary.
HIPAA Policy
Medical Record Requests
You may request a copy of your medical records via phone or email info@bowlinggreendermatology.com. Your initial request for medical records will be printed free of charge. However, multiple copies may be subject to a printing fee ($25). Please allow up to 90 days for this process.
Form Requests (cancer policy, FMLA)
Please submit requests for cancer policies, FMLA paperwork or other required forms to our patient accounts supervisor. You may call the office to discuss the best way to complete these forms or email our billing deparment at billing@bowlinggreendermatology.com for more information. Please allow up to 4 weeks for completion. Due to the amount of time required by office staff to fill out such forms, you will be required to pay a $15 fee. We do not fill out disability forms.
Emergencies
In the event of a true emergency, please call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room. After normal business hours as a courtesy to our patients, we have a 24-hour live assistance answering service that is available for urgent issues regarding your dermatologic care. Only urgent issues will be addressed after hours. Issues that will not be addressed include prescription refill requests, appointments/scheduling, test results and medical record requests to name a few. The answering service is intended for urgent issues such as post-operative bleeding and pain. All other issues will be handled during normal business hours.
Termination
We will treat you and your family with respect and consideration. We request that you treat our staff in the same manner. Failure to do so may result in termination of services. Other actions which may result in termination include but are not limited to repeatedly missing appointments and failing to pay your account balance or honoring a mutually agreed upon repayment plan.
Financial policies
Your health coverage is a contract between you and your insurer, not the physician. Third party payers (commercial and government insurers) reimburse the physician according to a negotiated fee schedule. However, if issues arise, the patient is ultimately responsible for payment. As a courtesy to our patients, we will submit your claim to the insurer. You will then received an EOB (explanation of benefits) in the mail directly from your insurer detailing the amount you are required to pay, if any. We are now in the era of managed care. Insurance companies are concerned about the rising costs of healthcare. In an attempt to control their costs, they share the burden of paying for your healthcare with you. Please understand that we did not select your insurance plan. You will be responsible for any co-payments and/or deductibles required by your insurer at the time of service. A deductible is the amount of money your insurance company requires you to pay before your plan “kicks in” and covers the rest. You should assume every procedure done in a dermatology office will be applied to your deductible. We reserve the right to collect deductibles up front prior to certain procedures. We are contractually obligated with your insurer to collect these charges. There are no exceptions.
We accept payment in the form of cash, personal check, Visa, Mastercard and American Express. There is $25 returned check policy.
Patients with Out of Network Coverage
If we are not a provider with your insurance plan, you are expected to pay 100% of the charges at the time service is rendered. We would be happy to file the claim with your insurer who would then pay the patient directly, if applicable.
Patients with No Insurance Coverage (Self Pay)
Self-pay patients are required to pay a $75 office visit fee before seeing the physician. If procedures are deemed necessary and performed, the patient will be responsible for these costs as well. If necessary, our patient accounts supervisor will discuss the estimated charges before they will be performed. For larger procedures such as surgical removal of skin cancer, full payment is required the day the procedure is performed. An estimate of the cost will be provided prior to your surgery.
Pathology and Lab Fees
Diagnostic fees from outside labs are the patient’s responsibility. Facilities our practice uses includes Emory Immunofluorescence Laboratory, ProPath Dermatopathology Laboratory and American Esoteric Laboratory (AEL) to name a few. If you have questions about a bill received from one of these entities, you should call the phone number listed on the statement. We do not have the authority to discuss charges or your account balance with these laboratories.
Financial & Collections Policy
As a courtesy, we will file an insurance claim to your carrier for our services. In order to properly file or appeal a claim we must have each patients’ social security number, as well as, a valid and current insurance card. We will ask for these two items when scheduling your first appointment. This ensures we have the most pertinent information on file and we can verify insurance eligibility prior to or on the date of service, thus helping to make your visit more efficient.
In order to continue to provide outstanding medical care, we make every effort to collect money owed to our practice for previous treatment. All patient balances are due within 30 days from receipt of the statement from our office, or at any follow-up visits. We only send one patient statement due to the time and cost involved in the process. After 30 days from the date on your statement your account is considered past due and we will send you one courtesy reminder letter that your account must be paid within 7 business days or you will be sent to an outside collections agency. Delinquent account balances, overdue balances and payment arrangements with broken promises will be sent to an outside collections agency with an additional surcharge added to the amount owed to our facility. For those patients who have been sent to collections in the past and paid their balance, you will be permitted to make additional appointments.
Disclaimer & Copyright
All materials posted on this site are subject to copyrights owned by Bowling Green Dermatology and Skin Cancer Specialists, PLLC, or are used with permission of the copyright owner. Use of any material on this site, other than for the user’s personal use, is strictly prohibited without prior written permission from Bowling Green Dermatology and Skin Cancer Specialists, PLLC. Bowling Green Dermatology and Skin Cancer Specialists, PLLC’s name, logo and all related product and service information are the trademarks or service marks of Bowling Green Dermatology and Skin Cancer Specialists, PLLC, and may not be used without the express written permission of Bowling Green Dermatology and Skin Cancer Specialists, PLLC. These product and service names include, but are not limited to, Bowling Green Dermatology, Bowling Green Skin Cancer Specialists, and Bowling Green Skin Surgery Center. All other trademarks or service marks used herein are owned by their respective owners and may not be used by any other party without the express written permission of their respective owners.