Insurance & Billing for Well Visits
Good healthcare for infants, children, and adolescents begins with the well child visit (checkup) and other services that keep children healthy. These are called preventative services. Our providers and staff provide the services based on called Bright futures. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) made this plan to help doctors and families know which preventative services should be received from birth to 18 years of age, such as screening test is like developmental screenings for our younger patients and visions and hearing test for those 4 years old and older. We also followed the AAP vaccine schedule for newborns, infants, children, and adolescents.
Health Plans Terms to Know
Co-payment: A fixed amount that you pay for certain health services before the plan pays
Co-insurance: The portion of the charge that is not paid by the health plan (usually a fixed percent of each amount paid by the plan)
Deductible: An amount that must be paid before the health plan pay for covered services.
There may also be times when a child needs a service that is not considered preventative on the same day as a well child visit. If a child is not well or if a problem needs to be addressed during the checkup, the provider will need to provide an additional office visit service (called a sick visit) to care for the child. This is a different service and is required to be billed to your insurance and in addition to the preventative services provided on the same day. If you have a co-payment, co-insurance, or deductible amount for the sick visit, you will be responsible for the services, our office must charge you these amounts in accordance with the contract we have with your health plan.
We value your time and want to make the most of each appointment for a child. Therefore, we offer the opportunity to address any problem that needs a providers’ care during well child visits so only one trip is needed. Some examples of services that may be provided and billed in addition to preventative services include:
The providers work to address more than a minor problem, which must be billed has an office visit (For example, if the doctor gives a prescription, orders test, or changes care for a known problem)
Medical treatments (For example, breathing treatments)
Any procedure (For example, strep, RSV, influenza tests, removing sutures, ear wax, or foreign body removal)
All well visits, 3 years and up will automatically include a vision screen. If your insurance does not cover this type of screening it is your responsibility to let the office know in writing before the procedure is done, please notify the office if you do not want the vision done on a child.
Our office does not want you to be surprised by a bill, but
we must always bill your health plan based on the actual charges provided. Please feel free to ask questions about services that may not be paid in full by your health plan on the day of your visit.