Scheduling A First Appointment

If you would like to arrange a consultation for yourself or a family member, please call the office during our regular business hours (9:00 AM to 6:00 PM Monday through Friday) and let the receptionist know you would like to arrange an initial consultation.  She will ask you for additional information, including your insurance provider, insurance ID number, who referred you to our practice, and a brief description of the problem that you would like help with.  This information will be reviewed by the Director or Associate Director, who will determine which of our clinical staff would be best suited to provide the initial consultation.  We will then contact you to schedule an appointment.

 

After the appointment has been scheduled, we will send you a questionnaire to complete and bring in with you when you come for your first appointment.  This questionnaire will provide us with more detailed information about your concerns, as well as information regarding prior mental health evaluation and treatment, medical history, personal and developmental history, etc.  Prior completion of this form will allow us to use your appointment time more efficiently.  We will also send you additional information regarding our practice, including information about our fees and financial policies, and a map and directions to our office.  

 

If you need to cancel or reschedule your first appointment, please call the office to let us know as far in advance as possible, but at least 72 hours prior to the scheduled appointment.  If an initial appointment is cancelled with less than 72 hours prior notice or missed without prior cancellation, we may not be able to reschedule.  

Back to Top

 

Initial Consultation

For adult patients, the initial evaluation is generally completed in the first appointment.  Further diagnostic sessions are recommended if needed.  Otherwise treatment recommendations are made at the conclusion of the initial session. 

 

For children, adolescents, and couples, more than one appointment is often required to complete the evaluation and to have adequate time to discuss our impressions and treatment recommendations with you.  Additional consultations and assessment procedures are recommended when indicated, including psychological or neuropsychological testing, educational testing, speech and language testing, medical or neurological consultation or testing, or laboratory tests.

 

If we recommend ongoing treatment, the clinician who was chosen to provide the initial consultation will often be the clinician best suited to provide the ongoing treatment.  However, in some cases, the clinician who has provided the initial evaluation may recommend that another member of our clinical staff would be better suited to provide the treatment you need.  Likewise, if we feel that you may be able to obtain more suitable treatment for your needs outside of our practice, we will make every effort to help you to arrange that treatment. 

 

Depending on the nature of your problems, on what type of treatment you may have already had and its outcome, and on your own preferences, our treatment recommendations may include “talking” psychotherapy (individual psychotherapy, family or couple’s therapy, group therapy, or parent counseling), treatment with medication, or both.  If one of the non-physicians in our practice has seen you for the initial consultation and feels that treatment with medication may be indicated as a part of your treatment plan, he or she will discuss this impression with you and recommend a psychopharmacology consultation with one of the physicians (Psychiatrists) in our practice or with our Clinical Nurse Specialist.  Likewise, if you have seen one of the Psychiatrists or the Clinical Nurse Specialist for the initial consultation and they feel that psychotherapy should be a part of the treatment plan, they may refer you to also see one of the Clinical Psychologists or Psychiatric Social Workers.

 

Some individuals who are being treated with medication and with psychotherapy may prefer or may do best seeing one clinician for both types of treatment.  However, many others will do best with the special psychopharmacological expertise of one of the Psychiatrists or our Clinical Nurse Specialist, and the special psychotherapy expertise of another clinician.  One of the strengths of our multidisciplinary practice is that we are able to provide a broad range of both psychotherapy expertise and psychopharmacology expertise.  For those individuals who are seeing two different clinicians, one for psychotherapy and another for psychopharmacology, having both clinicians in one location is more convenient for you and allows the two clinicians to work together more closely as a team. 

Back to Top

 

Emergency & After-Hours Coverage

24 hour, 365 day coverage for medical emergencies is provided through an emergency voicemail beeper system. 

 

If you or a family member are in treatment at Comprehensive Psychiatric Associates and are experiencing a medical emergency that will not wait until our normal business hours, you should call our office (781-239-3550), then press 4 when the voicemail system answers.  Follow the instructions to leave an emergency message.  A clinician from our office will return your call within 30 minutes.  If you are concerned about an immediate safety issue and cannot wait to get a call back from us, you should go to your nearest hospital Emergency Room for evaluation.  If you or a family member is experiencing a life-threatening emergency, you should call 911.

 

If you have a pressing concern or feel you need to speak to the clinician that has been providing treatment before your next appointment, but it is not a medical emergency, then it is usually best to wait until the office is open to call.  The receptionist will then either schedule an appointment for you to meet with your clinician as soon as possible, or will take a message regarding your urgent concern and see that your treating clinician gets the message as quickly as possible. 

 

We cannot provide emergency after-hours consultation for individuals who have not yet had an initial evaluation in our office. 

Back to Top

 

Billing and Insurance

Our clinical staff are providers with most insurance and managed care plans, including Blue Cross Blue Shield, Blue Choice, Blue Care Elect, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Health Care Value Management, HMO Blue, Magellan, Medicare, Private Health Care Systems, Tufts Associated Health Plan, and others.

 

If we are a contracted provider for your insurance plan, we will bill the insurance directly.  Payment of any applicable co-payment or deductible is due at the time services are rendered.  If we do not have a contractual provider relationship with your insurance plan, full payment for services is due at the time services are provided.  We will bill your insurance for you, and reimburse you if we receive payment from the insurer. 

 

Some services may not be covered by health insurance.  Charges for uncovered services will be your responsibility.  This may include charges for telephone consultations, written correspondence, or reports in connection with evaluation or treatment, and charges for appointments that are missed or canceled without at least 48 hours prior notification. 

 

We will try to handle all insurance issues in order to save you that time, but the final responsibility for payment of charges for our services is yours.  Likewise, we will try to explain your insurance benefits to you as best we can.  However, we encourage you to call your insurance company yourself to learn exactly what your mental health benefits are (they are often different from other medical benefits).  When we call your insurance provider to verify your benefits, it is not uncommon that we are given erroneous, misleading, or contradictory information.  Therefore, we cannot be responsible if the information we provide you is in error and your insurance ends up covering a smaller amount of your charges than you expect.

 

Please remember that you, not your insurance, are ultimately responsible for payment for the services we provide, and that it is your insurance, not ours.  If you feel that your insurance has not paid as much of our charges as they should, we will help however we can, but cannot be responsible if you believe that they have not fulfilled their obligation to you.

 

Our financial and billing policies are explained further in our Financial Policies Agreement form.  You may review our fees here.

 

We accept Visa and MasterCard. 

Back to Top

 

Appointment Cancellations and Rescheduling

Our cancellation policy requires that you call at least 48 business hours in advance of the appointment in order to avoid being charged.  This is so that we will have enough time to schedule other patients who need appointments.  If the appointment is on a Monday or following a long weekend, the cancellation should be made before noon on the previous working day.  We also charge for appointments that are missed without prior cancellation.  Insurance generally does not cover charges for missed appointments or late cancellations; therefore, any charges will be your responsibility.  We generally require that charges for missed appointments or late cancellations be paid at or before the next visit.

In order to respect all patients’ time and schedules, we try very hard to stay on time for appointments.  However, if an emergency has come up in the office, there may be a delay.  Otherwise, you will need to be on time to make full use of your scheduled time. 

Back to Top

 

Privacy & Confidentiality

We pledge to provide you with the highest quality of care and to build a relationship that is based on trust.  This trust includes our commitment to respect the privacy and confidentiality of your health care information.  For further details of our privacy and confidentiality practices, please see the Notice of Privacy Practices. 

Back to Top