Patient Rights Under Florida Transparency Act of 2016 and 2023 Revisions
Services Provided by ASC Surgery Center, a state licensed health care facility.
Comprehensive Surgery Center schedules patient care when your physician schedules a procedure for you at this surgery center. The facility has one fee that covers the following items: Nursing, technician and related services; use of the facility; testing for certain lab tests performed at the surgery center just as glucose (blood sugar), pregnancy, and hemoglobin; medications administered before, during and after your surgery while in the facility; surgical supplies used by the physician and staff; equipment used in the facility; surgical dressings; implants except those specifically classified as premium implants that require additional patient payment.
Separate Providers
Services may be provided in this facility by the facility as well as by other health care providers who may separately bill the patient. Those separate health care providers may or may not participate with the same health insurers or health maintenance organizations (HMOs) as this facility. Patients and prospective patients should contact each health care provider who will provide services in the facility to determine the health insurers and HMOs with which the provider participates as a network provider or preferred provider.
Another health care provider who will bill you for services includes your physician performing the procedure. Other providers who will bill separately if they provide you with health care services in this surgery center include an anesthesia provider who delivers anesthesia services to you at the facility and a pathology provider and laboratory which will analyze tissue your physician may require be sent to the laboratory to diagnose your condition.
You can contact the facility’s anesthesia providers about whether they participate in your health plan. The anesthesia provider is:
Comprehensive Anesthesia of Pinellas, LLC
Rodfr@gmac.com
Telephone number: 813-263-7457
We may be required to send tissue for analysis by a pathology lab contracted with your health plan. Your insurer’s provider network information may include the pathology lab in the insurer’s network of providers. You may want to check with your insurer. Or, you can contact the laboratory directly about whether they participate in your health plan.
The pathology lab we send tissue to for analysis is:
Quest Diagnostics
1219 Cleveland Street,
FL. 33755
Telephone number: 866- 697-8378
Questconnect.com
Estimate of Charges
Patient or prospective patients may request from this facility and other health care providers an estimate of charges prior to receiving services. We must respond to you within seven days of your request.
Our estimate will be based upon the procedure your physician tells us that he or she plans to perform and the insurance information that you provide to us. We normally will contact your insurer to learn of your eligibility for the procedure and will then base our estimate upon what the insurer tells us about the payment they will make for the procedure. The procedure your physician actually performs may differ from the initial one planned based upon your medical condition at the time of the procedure. Since we cannot forecast the change, the estimate will be based upon the planned procedure as scheduled by your physician. You may pay less or more for this procedure or service at another facility or in another health care setting.
We will inform you if your co-payment responsibility exceeds what you would pay if you choose to pay 100% of the bill in cash as part of our cash discount payment policy.
Financial Assistance Arrangements
We only schedule procedures at this facility by physicians who are on the medical staff at the facility. If your physician has determined that special financial assistance may be warranted and the physician agrees to those special financial arrangements for his or her services, you may be eligible for special financial assistance at the facility. If your physician or the physician’s office staff have agreed to provide special financial assistance to you for a procedure the physician wants to schedule at this facility, please contact us. Please be advised that we do not provide charity care. However, we may provide a reduced fee depending upon your financial assistance needs and our verification of eligibility.
We will require you to complete an application for financial assistance that provides us with information about your income and expenses. This will allow us to access your need and qualifications for special financial assistance. Confirmation of eligibility includes verification of your household income through paycheck stubs, receipts for payment of mortgage or rent and utilities, last year’s tax filing, and information regarding changes since the last tax filing occurred. We follow the most recent poverty guidelines set by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Since these special financial arrangements do not apply to all patients, each patient should request individualized information particular to his or her financial situation.
Collections
Prior to your scheduled procedure, we will contact you with the results of the verification of your insurance benefits to advise of your insurance deductible and co-payment amounts that will be due from you prior to your surgery. We expect the amount estimated due to be paid on the day of your surgery when you register at our admission desk.
If you need special consideration for payment of the amount due, you must contact us prior to the date of the planned procedure so we can evaluate your eligibility. You may be eligible to pay your balance monthly over a period of three months. This is based upon your income and expenses that are verified per our charity care policy and take into consideration that, while you do not meet federal poverty guidelines for charity care, you may quality for a payment plan if we can verify your income is less than four times the federal poverty level.
If we received denial of payment from your insurer or Health Maintenance Organization, we will notify you. If we receive payment from your insurer or HMO that is less than projected, we will notify you of additional payment due. Payment will be expected within 15 days of notification of the balance due. Failure to pay the balance due by the deadline will result in your account being turned over to a collection agency.
Health Related Data and Pricing
Health related data, including quality measures and statistics for defined procedures can be found on the Agency for Healthcare Administration website https://quality.healthfinder.fl.gov/ the service bundle Information is a non-personalized estimate of costs that may be incurred by the patient for anticipated services and that actual cost will be based on services actually provided to the patient. The average pricing for bundled procedures can be found on the Agency for Healthcare Administration website at http://pricing.floridahealthfinder.gov.