What is it?
I am not certain that this term even exists, however essentially instead of going full self-pay for visits, I will still bill insurance and there will be an additional fee for each visit.
Why is there a fee?
Accepting insurance has become challenging for many reasons, but declining reimbursement rates make it difficult to be able to continue providing high quality care. In order to continue with just insurance reimbursement, I would need to cut visits to 30 minutes, and this is not appropriate or effective when treating Lipedema or Lymphedema. Therefore, the fee will allow for the longer duration visits that are needed to truly treat these conditions correctly. There are also several other services that are provided in this facility that are not provided at others that justify the fee (see below).
What does the fee include?
Timely Communication with access to the cellphone number of therapist for personalized and quick communication via text of phone call. You will receive a response in hours, not days.
Extended visit length that allows for high quality and effective care. Most lymphedema clinics are located within busy orthopedic clinics where productivity is top priority. Full hour visits give me the opportunity to give you the full attention you deserve without feeling rushed.
Emergency visits so that flares in condition can be dealt with in a timely manner. With Lymphedema and Lipedema flares are inevitable. I am setting aside 2 visits per week for “Emergency Only”. If we can deal with flares quickly it will have less impact on you long term.
Bioimpedance testing so that we can obtain quick and reliable data to monitor your condition. This takes one minute vs the 10-15 minutes that girth measurements take and gives me a good picture of exactly what is going on in your body so that we can make adjustments as we need without sacrificing treatment time.
You will not be discharged as chronic conditions are best maintained by continuous care. As long as insurance does not require that discharge needs to occur, then you will not be discharged from care. Even if we only see each other 3 months, your condition will be monitored and if a flare occurs you can get back in for treatment quickly and not need to go through the bother of getting a new prescription. Many other clinics will just see you for your acute problem and make you go through the whole evaluation process to return if you have an issue.
Compression Clinic is held once per month directly with representatives of the vendor. Therefore, your measurements are done accurately and in conjunction with your therapist. This leads to better fitting garments that you will want to wear! Also, I take charge of sending the orders into the durable medical providers directly. This means that I chase down the prescription from the doctor’s office before the order is even submitted. This saves sometimes months of back and forth that can occur if you go to a third party for measurement. You get your garments faster which means that we can control your condition better.
What is the fee?
$75 for one visit or 10 Visit Package for $600
If you have any further questions please feel free to contact me at 401-575-6266 or mindy@hopeworthpt.com