Tamara Wells, the Director of the Business Office, who handles the financial form intake in the Texas Outpatient and Infusion Center packet, described the process of filling out forms for the Infusion Therapy program.
She said the patient’s demographic, insurance, and medical information forms will need to be filled out first and then submitted to the clinic. After this, the patient will follow the next instructions, including getting lab work completed.
Wells said, following these steps, “Dr. Miller will verify your labs and check and make sure that you qualify for the program. Once he sends in the order to the infusion department, they will then turn that into my office.”
She said her office will then call the patient’s insurance company to verify insurance and discover which benefits are offered. Her office also ensures that there isn’t a need for prior authorization with the insurance company, and if there is, they will complete that process.
Wells added, “Then someone from my office will call you and go over what your benefits are for your insurance. If you have Medicare and a supplement, there’s usually not an out-of-pocket for a patient.”
She said if patients have commercial insurance, they will have a deductible and pay the appropriate copay. If patients don’t have insurance, they will be offered some financial assistance and have an easy payment option for self-pay.
Wells said if patients have an out-of-pocket that seems too high, the office works with them. Dr. Troxell stresses that he doesn’t want to turn anyone away due to cost. She added, “So, what you would do is you would talk to the person who calls you and say that you need to speak to someone in financial assistance. You would talk to Brenda Allen, and she’ll work out a plan for you.”
She said Allen will review everything with the patients and once complete, they will return to the infusion department and get added to the schedule. “This process normally takes about 10-14 days,” she said.
“Our numbers are all on the cards that are in the front of those packets so if y’all have questions, you can call my extension directly and I’ll help anyway that I can,” Wells said.
She said if patients live far away from Comanche, they can submit their packets to the Stephenville, Brownwood, or Abilene clinics, and they’ll be forwarded to the infusion clinic located in the CCMC.
Wells added, “Or, you can call me, and you can either fax them or email them to me and I’ll take them over to Dr. Miller‘s office for you.”
She said that any question patients have won’t be a question that the clinic won’t try to find answer to. Wells concluded, “If anyone is unsure how to fill out any portion of the forms, call my office, and someone will walk you through and help with the forms.”