Med-Ready House Calls provides on-site physician services on a weekly basis to residents in senior living communities throughout the Sacramento region.

Our experienced, board-certified physicians specialize in adult medicine and geriatrics, with special expertise in caring for complex patients and those with cognitive impairment.  They spend whatever time is required to diagnose and treat medical problems, support the patient’s family, and preserve quality of life – both for patients and their caregivers.

Our practice is completely independent of the communities we serve.  We are not “house physicians” or agents of the facility.  Residents and families may use our services or not—like any medical practice. We believe you will choose our practice because our quality of care and customer service is second to none in the region.

This orientation guide provides useful information about our practice that we hope will help our patients and their families use our service to the best advantage.

Insurance – We Accept Medicare and take Assignment

We accept Medicare, and take assignment, which means we directly bill Medicare, and all supplemental insurance plans. We only bill the patient if there's an unpaid balance which is not covered by Medicare, or the supplemental insurer. We also accept nearly all Medicare Advantage Plans, except those that are strict HMOs, Medi-Cal and Workers Compensation.

Medicare reimburses 80% of our professional fees-after patients have met their annual deductible-as it does for all primary care physicians. Medicaid and many supplemental insurance plans pay the 20% of a physician's fee not covered by Medicare (the co-pay), and some pay the annual deductible. However, some supplemental plans cover only a portion of the co-pay and do not cover the annual deductible, in which case the balance remaining after insurance payments become the patient's responsibility.

For patients without supplemental insurance, we bill the 20% co-pay at the time of service. (See "Balance Billing Policy" below)

Balance Billing Policy

Medicare and Medicaid pay for most, but not all, of the services you receive from physicians.  We request a credit card number from all patients at the time of registration (the POA or family member may provide their number instead), which we put into a secure data base accessible only to authorized practice personnel.  We charge the card only if there’s an unpaid balance after insurance payments, or for our trip charge when applicable, which is rare, or for services not covered by insurance, which are explained in writing on a separate ”informed consent” form detailing those services and charges including our trip charge.

Upon request, we can make financial arrangements that do not require a credit card. 

Although we do not invoice patients, we are happy to provide receipts and account “statements” if required for documentation.  Please keep in mind, however, that anything we charge to your credit card is documented in your monthly credit card statement, as well as the numerous reports provided to you by Medicare and all other insurance companies.

Registering Patients

We have two forms that must be completed to register a patient for our practice: a “registration” form and an “authorization” form.  Both must be completely filled out and returned to our office before we can schedule an appointment.  The authorization form must be signed by the patient, or by the patient’s POA.

Facility personnel are supposed to provide support and guidance to families who wish to register for our practice.  They can facilitate the process by giving you our information package, which contains those forms, and faxing the completed forms to our office.

You can also download the registration and authorization forms from our website, www.medreadyHouse Calls.com, and mail or fax them to us.

Please do not fax the registration forms to our office and assume an appointment will be made automatically.  Forms might get lost in transmission or might be incomplete, in which case we cannot schedule an appointment.  To avoid disappointment or confusion, please call and confirm the registration has been completed and an appointment scheduled, or ask the facility staff to do so on your behalf, especially if you want another family member to be present for the visit.

Scheduling Appointments
Although facility personnel often schedule appointments for a resident, we encourage residents or family members to schedule appointments directly with our office, just like you would any physician's office. The exceptions are visits to review and approve Medication Administration Records (MARs) or Care Plans, which are made by facility personnel as necessary to comply with state requirements.

Appointments should be scheduled as far in advance as practical. We will make every effort to see every resident who wants to be seen during our physician's weekly visit to the facility, even if the appointment is made the same morning the physician is at the facility.

On occasion, however, our physicians' schedule is such that they cannot accommodate a patient who has not made an appointment. Also, our physician will not come to the facility in the rare instances where no patients are scheduled. That's why we urge you to make an appointment-even as late as the same morning you would like to see the doctor-whenever possible.

Communicating with the Physician
Our physicians encourage the POA or the principal family caregiver to attend each of our physicians’ visits to the patient, and become an integral part of the health care team.  The physician’s visit is the best forum for communicating about the patient.  Time spent with the physician during a visit can be billed to insurance.  The same applies if our physician calls a family member while he or she is still with the patient, or still at the facility.

We recognize that it may not always be possible for the family to communicate with the physician during or just after the physician’s visit with the patient.  Our physicians are more than willing to call a family member after they’ve seen the patient; however Medicare does not pay for telephone consultations under that circumstance, so our practice must bill separately for the physician’s time.

In our experience, family members would much rather pay and have access to the physician after a visit, than not have access at all—which is what too often happens in other medical practices because of  Medicare’s policy.