Medical Associates of Arlington – Internist, Arlington, VA

Visiting Your Physician

Welcome to Medical Associates of Arlington. We have compiled a list of policies listed below, in an effort to support our mission of providing quality care for all of our patients. Please review these policies and inform the staff if you have any questions, concerns or suggestions that may be considered to enhance the level of service we strive to provide.

Patient Information and Guidelines

Hours of Operation

Our office is open Monday - Friday, 8am - 12n & 1:30pm - 4:30pm.
Our telephone lines are open Monday - Friday, from 8am - 12:00pm & 1pm - 4:30pm (Please note: The after-hours answering service is available for emergencies to reach our on-call provider.)

Messages/Call-Back Requests

All messages left for the clinicians will be returned by the end of the next business day. Any patient experiencing a new onset of illness will be advised to make an appointment to be seen in the office.
Same/next day appointments are available for acute issues. However, any patient experiencing an emergency or life-threatening illness should call 911 or proceed to the nearest emergency room.
Messages left for the Medical Assistant/Nurse will be returned within 24-hours of the time the message was left.

Prescription Refills

Prescription refill requests are to be faxed from the pharmacy directly to the office. Our fax number is listed at the bottom of this letter.
Patients requesting new prescriptions must be seen for an appointment by a clinician.
Antibiotics are not prescribed over-the-phone. Patients who request an antibiotic will be directed to schedule an appointment.
Some prescription refills will require a follow-up appointment in the office prior to authorization. The clinician will review the faxed request from the pharmacy, as well as the patient's medical record, to determine appointment needs. The patient will be contacted by the staff to schedule such appointment, if necessary.
Please allow 48-hours to fill prescription requests. Please plan ahead for refills when traveling and for daily usage to prevent lapses of medicine refills.

Co-pays/Self Pay Patients

**We accept payments in the form of cash, check, money order or credit cards.

Co-pays are due at the time of check-in. Any co-pay not collected at the time of the appointment is subject to additional fees associated with processing statements and mailing expenses.
Patients without insurance are expected to pay for services rendered at time of visit.

Insurance/Demographic Information

Insurance cards are to be presented at the time of check-in prior to being seen. If a patient does not have their insurance card(s), they will be responsible for payment until such proof of insurance is provided.
For established patients, registration/demographic information must be updated with current information. If you are a new patient, please be sure to give your insurance card and driver's license to the receptionist.
The registration forms are available as a downloadable PDF on our website, and the option to pre-register on-line will be available soon on our website.

Referrals

Patients in need of a referral to a specialist due to their insurance company guidelines must notify the office in advance of this request. Please allow up to 7 business days for the referral to be processed. In the event of an emergency referral, deemed an emergency by the clinician, the request will be processed within 24-hours.
Emergency referrals will be faxed upon completion to the facility/clinician providing the treatment.
Non-urgent referrals will be mailed to the patient directly or can be picked up by the patient.
All referrals are scanned into the patient's electronic medical record (EMR) for future reference.
Due to the amount of time associated with generating referrals, there may be a fee associated with misplaced referrals. All patients are encouraged to allot adequate time for processing and keep referrals in a safe place.

Medical Records Release

For all new patients, please be sure to obtain a release form from the receptionist to be sent by our office to your previous doctor(s) at the time of check-in.
When requesting a release of medical records from our practice, please allow 7 business days from the date the release was received for your request to be processed.
The fees associated with releasing records from MAA are as follows: $10 Processing Fee + $.50/page for the first fifty (50) pages & then $.25/page for all subsequent pages.

What to Bring (Reminders)

All new patients will need to be an updated medication list, recent hospitalization data (if applicable), pharmacy information, and any past medical records or legal documents related to healthcare treatment.
If you regularly take medication(s), please bring either a list of medications or the bottles in which you received them from the pharmacy so that you can review your prescriptions with the Clinician and your medication list can be updated in our system.

Travel Appointments

Appointments for the sole purpose of international travel, including vaccinations, malaria prophylaxis and antibiotic needs are not a covered benefit with most insurance plans. A separate fee, payable at the time of the visit, will be assessed dependent upon the complexity of the travel itinerary and the medical needs associated with it.

Form Completion

A separate fee of $25.00, payable at the time of the visit, is associated with all form completions. Dependent upon the visit, forms can be completed within the visit or you may be asked to leave forms with your Clinician and allow 1-2 business days to be processed.

Thank you for choosing Medical Associates of Arlington.

The above information can also be downloaded as a PDF document:
Patient Information and Guidelines