Fischer Family Medicine

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Reasons to not visit :(

Dr. Cilento has a very busy practice with a tremendously loyal practice base. She does however, have a very small number of patients that have been unhappy with her practice. These are usually patients who try to get her to bend her moral or medical values.  She will not acquiesce and those patients often leave the practice very upset. The following may help those few decide if they want to visit our practice.

We have some important details below, but to sum it up, we don’t supply drug addicts, we are here to help people get healthy and back to work, we have significant insurance company issues but we follow their rules as best we can, we follow all laws, and we collect co-pays and our very reasonable fees (you couldn’t get a plumber for what we charge).

Details below………..

1) OxyContin / Methadone and other highly addictive pain medications – In over 20 years of writing prescriptions Dr Cilento has never and will never write a prescription for the aforementioned drugs. They are highly addictive and there are other treatments available. Rare patients, we in our office refer to as “drugs seekers” make appointments trying to get these drugs. When they realize that we will not prescribe them the situation can and has degraded to threats and intimidation by these patients. We have and will continue to call the police when needed. This a real issue and while it is not common in our practice it happens.

2) Disability and workman’s compensations – We have and will continue to put people out of work when needed. We understand that in many cases people can’t return to work and we do our best to improve and maintain their quality of life. That being said we are not the practice you want if you simply want to be out because you don’t want to work.  We will only put you out of work if needed then we will do our best to get you back to work when you are able.  This is not the practice for you if you want unwarranted disability or workers compensation.

3) Insurance - Insurance is incredibly complicated and almost impossible to understand even for professionals who deal with it every day. We don't always know for sure what the correct answer is and following required procedures can be very time consuming. Our staff will help but you must be patient as we do our best to get you the needed care.

4) The United States of America / The State of NJ / CDC / Ocean County ect.. – We at Fischer Family Medicine don’t make the laws but we do follow them whether we agree with them or not.  We will not ignore a law. This is a fact and it is not negotiable. Regardless of who a patient knows, who a patient thinks they are or what a patient insists other doctors have done in the past we will still follow all laws.

5) Fees – While most of our patients have insurance fees are still included with most of those insurances. We collect those fees and while most patients are great we always get a few that literally have a tantrum over a 20 or 30 dollar copay. It is important to know that we really do collect co-pays and we collect them before a patient is seen. It makes check out quicker for most of our patients and keeps the few problematic patients from sneaking out the back door. (and yes that has happened)

6) Missed Appointments - We charge $15 if we don't get a call 24 hours in advance and $30 if you don't show up without a call. As with most unpleasant rules they are because of a few patients who regularly miss appointments. These fees keep those patients in check and keep usable appointments open for those who need them.

7) Medical Charts – By law we must keep medical charts for 7 years. We can’t give you your charts. We always send any needed documentation to specialist during your treatment at our office quickly and free of any charges. If you want a copy of your charts a fee of $1 a page up to $100 is charged. You must fill out and sign a form in our office then we pay a chart copying company (the actual amount you pay us) to copy those charts and send them to you.

8) HIPAA – Those initials stand for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act – the most important pertinent part of that law regards the privacy of your health information.  We follow these rules to the letter. Under no circumstances will we break them.

9) Forms - No one like forms but they are required. They must be filled out and updated. We had a grown man have a tantrum in our office and leave our practice because he doesn't fill out forms, he has a "staff to do that for him".  Again we don't want make people fill out forms but they are needed. We try to keep blank copies on this site to make it easier on our patients but if you will not fill out the required forms you will not be seen by the doctor.