Office Policies & Procedures

Please schedule an appointment for any refills. 

If your child's prescription is running low, please do not wait until the weekend or until the medication has completey run out. If you are planning to travel out of town, please make sure your child has enough medication for the trip.

Please keep the following policies in mind if your child is referred to a specialist:

• If you are enrolled in a managed care plan (i.e. HMO), you most likely will require a referral from our office before seeing a specialist, being sent for labs, or getting x-rays or other tests.  Please allow five business days for our office to process your request.
• It is your responsibility to know if a written referral or authorization is required to see a specialist, whether pre-authorization is required prior to a procedure, and what services are covered.  
• It is your responsibility to know if a selected specialist participates in your insurance plan.
• If you receive care at any referred facility, you and your insurance company will be responsible for any fees or costs incurred.

We recommend following the guidelines of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) regarding childhood immunizations.  Immunizations are important not only for your child's health, but for the health of other children, and the community.

Many parents have questions or concerns regarding childhood vaccinations.  If you have concerns about immunizing your child, we are happy to discuss the pros and cons of doing so.  We encourage you to read more about vaccines at http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/.

Please visit our website resources for additional resources regarding immunizations.

While the prescribing of antibiotics is appropriate and necessary in many cases, we prefer to be conservative in their use. Overuse can lead to serious problems, including infection from antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Antibiotics are only effective against bacterial infections, and provide no benefit to patients with viral infections such as the common cold or the flu. For this reason, we will not prescribe antibiotics without first examining the patient to determine the type of infection.

Insurance

• It is important that you understand that your insurance coverage is a contract between you and your insurance company and that we are not a party to this contract. You are therefore ultimately responsible for the timely payment of your account.
• If you are required to designate a primary care physician you must make sure our name and phone number appears on your insurance card. Failure to do so may leave you financially responsible for your visit.
• Valley of the Sun Pediatrics has registered with most major insurance companies that provide health insurance in Arizona to ensure our patients can be served effectively.  Due to the complexity and differences of each plan, we ask for your cooperation so that we may better serve your family.  You are responsible to know the details of your plan, for example, covered services and participating laboratories.  Not all plans cover annual healthy (well) physicals or sports physicals.  Vision and Hearing screens may not be covered.  Also, for children younger than 2 years of age there may be a limit on the number of allowable well visits per year.   You will be responsible for payment for uncovered visits.  Please be aware that an authorization from your insurance company for treatment is not a guarantee of payment. If the insurance company that you designate is incorrect, you will be responsible for payment of the visit and to submit the charges to the correct plan. 

When payment is due

• Payment is required at each visit.  This may include deductibles, co-payment  or payment in full. If you are waiting for coverage to become effective or have no insurance, payment in full will be required at the time of the visit. For your convenience, we accept Visa or Master Card. You may pay your bill over the phone, or by mail.

Cash patients

• If you have no insurance, payment for an office visit is to be paid at the time of the visit.