Cancellation, Late and Missed Appointment Policy
Our Goal at Merit Family Medicine is to provide our patients with convenient, accessibly, high quality medical care. In order for us to ensure accessibility to all of our patients, it is important that all patients arrive on time for all scheduled appointments or cancel the appointment 24 hours in Advance. This policy allows us to make better use of our available appointments for those patients in need of medical care.
Cancellation of an Appointment
Appointments are in high demand and your early cancellation will give another patient the opportunity to be seen by a provider. You may cancel your scheduled appointment using the Patient Portal, or you may call or text our office during regular business hours.
Late Arrival Policy
To help ensure that our wait times are kept minimal, we ask patients to arrive on time with their ID and insurance for their scheduled appointments. Patients will be given a 7 minutes grace period and after a patient is 8 minutes past their scheduled appointment time, the appointment will be considered a missed appointment and will need to be rescheduled.
Missed Appointment Policy
A “Missed Appointment” is an occurrence where a patient does not show up for their scheduled appointment, arrives past the 7-minute grace period for an appointment, or does not cancel the appointment in 24 hours in Advance of the scheduled date and time. This will be recorded in the medical records as a missed appointment and is subject to a $25 No Show Fee. This fee will not be submitted to the health plan; it will be charged to the patient and is the sole responsibility of the patient or guardian. All missed appointment fees must be paid in full before the patient can be scheduled another appointment. Patients who have three (3) or more missed appointments in a 12-month period may be discharged from the practice and no further appointments will be scheduled. Missed new patient appointments may not be rescheduled. We understand that special, unavoidable circumstances may cause a patient to miss their appointment and missed appointment penalties may be waived in some instances but only upon management approval.
Merit Family Medicine believes that a good provider/patient relationship is based upon understanding and good communication. If you feel there has been an error in scheduling or believe you deserve a special consideration, please let us know and you may speak with our Office Manager.