Preferred Phone Greeting

Good morning/afternoon, Alamo Maxillofacial Surgical Associates - How may I assist you?

Age Requirement

No age requirement

Scheduling Consults / Surgery Appts

When scheduling surgery, a deposit of $150 must be made (except for Dr. Buckley).

Patients have two options when making appointments for extractions.

Consultation or consultation and surgery same day (as long as no medical issues and not taking blood thinners/aspirin).

If a new patient is scheduled and they do not have their insurance info, send an email to Donna and Norma to notify them. They will call for the info.

TMJ

Maximum of 1 TMJ consult per month, per doctor. No Fridays. Anytime of day is ok.
No TMJ consults: During peak season, November through January 15, March, June through August.
If more than 5 patients per week, contact manager.
Patients MUST have a written referral from their dentist and have had past treatment with a splint/night guard. No referrals from primary care, ENT, or Urgent Care/ER. * Dr. Clark does not see TMJ 

New Patients Insurance Info

For ALL new patient appointments: If you do not obtain insurance information at the time of scheduling, alert the in-house scheduling/referrals team via email, and add a note to the appointment note and alert "NEEDS INS INFO"

Old Charts

Old charts are stored and requested in-house at the Plaza location. Email chart storage requests to melissa@alamooms.com. We only keep charts in-house for the current and previous year. Any older charts must be requested from storage.

Referrals

Send all referrals to info@alamooms.com, or upload into Leading Reach. Patients are responsible for obtaining their own referral. A referral is NOT required to be seen. The office will request a referral from DDS as needed.

Appointment Notes

NEW APPT: 12.21.23 (DATE OF ENTRY)- PT REFERRED BY Dr. Dentist for 3rds, referral and pano received/requested ref and pano from DDS. DR ( your initials)

For Surgery Appt: Include the details of the sx, (ie: 1.5 hours IV, 3rds, Exparel)

05/03. PT schedule CN3rd- Dr.Jennifer Bone XRAY/REF in LR-DELTA GA IN EXTENDED NOTES-AWARE IS ONLY CONSULT//MS

Date scheduled/Appt reason/Referral name/ Xray/Referral in LR or somewhere else?/Ins plan (name) in ext. notes/patient instructions given (ie:  pt told consult only/pt will complete reg online/pt needs an interpreter, etc.)/ Schedulers initials

Appointment Confirmation

Appointments are confirmed by Lighthouse and phone calls.

Cancellations/ Reschedules

Cancellations 24 hours or more in advance are acceptable. A cancellation less than 24 hours in advance will result in forfeiture of the $150 surgery deposit. To cancel or reschedule an appointment, change the appt type to cancel/reschedule and make a new appointment.

Cancellation List

There is not an active cancellation list.

Holiday Breaks

No TMJ consults during peak season.
Peak season dates are June 1 - September 1, Thanksgiving, and December 15 - January 15.

Patients with Special Needs

No scheduling preferences for patients with special needs. 

Nursing Home/Assisted Living/Rehab 

We are required to obtain additional information on these patients to coordinate their care.
 

1. Facility name, phone number and patients most recent DDS and referral information
2. Contact info (nurse/aide) responsible for patients transfer; Are they arriving by medical transportation or ambulance?
3. Medical Power of attorney
4. Is patient ambulatory or confined to a wheelchair?

Spanish Speakers

Spanish-speaking patients can be scheduled with Dr. Franco or Dr. Torres.

Inmates

Only w/doctor approval. Collect basic demographics and email office for approval *Dr. Clark will see Inmates at the end of the morning or day of post production

Sign Language Interpreter

If an ASL interpreter is needed, email the PCC, copy the manager. A service must be scheduled for these patients. Create an alert. See Interpreting Information pages.

Same Day Surgery

Healthy patients may be scheduled for same day surgery. A healthy patient is someone with no alarming medical history, younger vs elderly. Same day requests should be forwarded to the office for further action/doctor approval. 

Openings in the surgery schedule 24 hours prior- can anything be scheduled?

If there is an opening in the surgery schedule within 24 hours, any type of appointment may be scheduled at that time. 

Appointments that need to be coordinated with the referring doctor

If an appointment needs to be coordinated, email message to PCC for the doctor. 

Procedures not performed

Connective tissue graft, Apicoectomy, and Oral Appliances.

How is the need for a medical clearance notated?

If a medical clearance is needed there will be an alert in the account and noted in the chart notes. 

How long is a consult good for?

A consultation is typically good for 6 months before needing to be seen for re-evaluation. 

Work-ins

Confirm that the doctor has time for an emergency, which includes consult and possible treatment time.
Explain to calling emergency patients that they will need to complete a medical-history form upon their arrival and ask if they have any heart or joint problems or allergies. If patients need to be premedicated, this needs to be known before they arrive at the office. Discuss insurance and fees up front be very clear, make it a policy to briefly talk about insurance such as, “Our office is happy to work with your dental insurance. For today`s visit, however, we will need for you to cover the emergency- appointment charges. Appointments to alleviate pain usually involve consultation ($180) and x-rays ($165). We will help you with your insurance, so if any reimbursement is made, it will be credited to your account." Make sure they bring their insurance information with them.
Email is sent to Liz to verify insurance as an add-on.

Follow Ups

Patients are typically scheduled for an in-person follow up. 

Duplicate Accounts

If there is a duplicate account, a note is entered in the "new" account: DO NOT USE -- Duplicate account #12345
Prevention of duplicate accounts should be practiced through a DOB search.

Treatment Plans

Patient is scheduled for consultation, demographics and insurance information are collected. Benefits are verified prior to the date of service.
Patient consults with doctor, recommended procedures are communicated by the doctor to the patient care coordinator (PCC) and are noted on the optisoft with plan for surgery.
PCC enters codes into treatment plan spreadsheet utilizing entry of UCR, insurance fee allowables, insurance coverage percentages, totaling patient responsibility. Non-covered items are also notated. Financial agreement is printed and signed. All are scanned into WinOMS as an attachment.
PCC presents the treatment fee estimate to patient with focus on conversion of the consult to surgery.

Dr. Rominger

Prefers surgery in the morning and consults in the afternoon, no break for lunch. 

Dr. Franco

No OGS or All on 4 (TEM) consults.
Has 20 minute consults with no gaps.

Do not schedule any consultations for a single tooth extraction at the end of day, unless it is a third molar consult, please make the latest scheduled appointment at 2:30, no later than that.

Dr. Hanna

For patients who are scheduling Trauma, TMJ, and orthognathic consultations, please advise that an appointment deposit of $150 is necessary in order to reserve/confirm the appointment.  

Dr. Torres

Pre-Existing referring doctors relationships with Alamo will be honored and maintained, giving scheduling priority in this order:
  1. The preferred Alamo doctor/doctor on the referral form
  2. Another of the partners at Alamo (Dr. Rominger/Buckley/Franco/Hanna/Verrett)
  3. If all doctors are full and there is not availability within a reasonable timeframe (24 hours for emergencies and 2 weeks for routine treatment) then please schedule the patient with Dr. Torres.
  Please refer to the Alamo referral list for details

Referring doctors brought into Alamo by Dr. Torres through networking/marketing should be scheduled with Dr. Torres, except in the following situations:
  * Emergency/same day referrals that Dr. Torres cannot work in
  * A list of these referrals will be maintained and made available by Melissa Fohn

Referrals gained through Alamo’s relationship with Dr. Clark (in Boerne) may be scheduled with any provider, unless a specific provider is listed on the referral.  (List of these referrals TBD) 

Dr. Verrett

All on 4 (TEM) Consultations: schedule for 60 minutes

Dr. Clark 

In netwrok with same Dental Insurances as the other provider, OON with Medical