Patient info

Welcome! We're happy to see you visiting our website!

We hope you find it a useful resource!

Hospital coverage for patients

Cayuga Medical Associates / Cayuga Medical Center of Ithaca Hospitalist

group provides all hospital care for our patients.

Practice Access for our Established Patients

During business hours:

Patients should contact our office by phone 607-257-3452, via patient portal or in person.

After business hours or when office is closed:

For perceived life threatening emergencies patients must call 911.

For urgent medical problems that are not perceived to be life threatening and cannot wait for next business day, patients should call our office and follow prompts to our answering service or go to a nearest convenient care center or emergency room.

For all other non-urgent questions or concerns patients are to contact via patient portal, call our office, follow prompts and leave a message. Messages will be retrieved on next working day.  We will respond as quickly as possible.

Prescription Refill Policy

Patients should call 5 business days before needing a prescription refill.

We recommend that patients request their medication refills at the time of their appointment.  That works best!

No-Show and Appointment Cancellation Policy

Patients must call to cancel an appointment at least one business day before their appointment otherwise this will be considered as a no-show and they will be charged either a Routine appointment no-show fee of $120, or a Physical no-show fee of $175.

New patients who are no-show for an initial appointment, without a reasonable cause, will not be given another appointment. We will assume no responsibility of any medical care for these patients.

Established patients who are no-show three times may be released from our practice.

Protocol for further medical care, testing or consultation / “Surprise Bill” notice

Referrals, procedures or need of tests are determined by the provider.

We will be glad to assist patients with referral process or to arrange for appointments for tests or procedures performed at other facilities.

At times, either due to scheduling conflicts between patient and other facilities or as per patient preference patients may arrange for consultation, procedures or tests for further care with provider or facility of their choice on their own. If patient selects a provider who doesn’t participate with patient’s insurance than patient may receive a "Surprise Bill" and in that case patient is responsible for payment.

Our office will try our best to confirm that patients are going to practices for consultation, procedures or tests where their insurance is accepted. It will also be up to patient to determine if another provider or facility of their choice accepts their insurance by inquiring with facility or provider. We are not able to confirm or determine, all the time, regarding insurance acceptance policies of other practices in or out of our area of practice.

Following information will be provided to a patient at the time physician refers or coordinates services with another provider or facility:

• Name, practice name, mailing address, and telephone number of health care provider or medical facility for tests or further medical care, testing or consultation (laboratory services, pathology services, radiology services, office consultations etc)

Financial Policies

Internal Medicine of Ithaca, PC is a private practice.  We receive no financial support from any source other than fees for medical services paid by patients or their insurance.  We try to make it as easy as possible for patients to pay their bills to our practice.  However, we cannot be sustainable if our patients or their insurance companies do not pay for the services we provide.

All patients are responsible for paying their co-pay at the time service is provided and for paying any balance due after insurance, immediately after receiving their first statement.

We accept cash, check, or VISA and MasterCard.

Our billing company will file insurance claims on behalf of our patients. When an insurance claim is denied, we will make a reasonable effort to appeal those decisions when appropriate.

Except as limited by law (i.e. Medicare or Medicaid patients), or by contract (some HMO or PPO insurers), any service fee not paid by an insurer is the responsibility of the patient.

Patients who do not make reasonable progress toward paying outstanding bills to the practice may be released from our practice.  Furthermore, the practice may give the account to a collection agency.

A $20.00 statement fee will be added to any account with a past-due outstanding balance.

Patients terminated from the practice due to outstanding obligations will be given thirty (30) days notice during which time they will be followed for emergency medical care services only.  Patients are still financially responsible for paying for any services provided during this time.

Notice for language service limitations

We are not able to provide language translation or interpretation services.

FORMS:

• New York State Immunization Information System (NYSIIS) Participation Consent
• New York State Immunization Information System (NYSIIS) Participation Withdrawl Consent Form
• Provider HIPAA Communication Guide with Patients and Family
• HealtheConnections Health Information Exchange (HIE) Consent Form
• HealtheConnections HealtheConnections Health Information Exchange (HIE)-wide Deny Consent Form
• Request to Inspect and Copy Protected Health Information
• Request for Limitation and Restriction of Protected Health Information
• Request for Correction-Amendment of Protected Health Information
• Request for an accounting of disclosures of Protected Health Information
• NYS-Surprise Medical Bill Assignment of Benefits Form
• Privacy Policy of Internal Medicine of Ithaca, PC
• Patient Complaint Form
• Medical Record Release Request from Internal Medicine of Ithaca. PC