New patient guide

Before your scheduled appointment, you will receive a text message with details about the appointment, as well as a pre check-in registration that you should complete prior to arriving. This registration will review demographic and insurance information. (For pediatric appointments, it may also include an age-appropriate questionnaire for parents to complete.)

MD Family Clinic verifies and confirms all appointments on the schedule 2-3 days ahead of time and will reach out to you directly if any insurance issues are found.

It’s your appointment day! Once you arrive at the clinic, our medical receptionists will check for any updated information, collect forms and co-payments, and enter your driver’s license and insurance card into our computer system. We will verify your contact information at every visit, so we can always get in touch with you if we need to — especially if your phone number or email address has changed.

While you are waiting, our medical assistants (MAs) and providers are busy seeing other patients and preparing your exam room. Because we have multiple providers seeing patients at one time, you may not be called back into an exam room in the order you arrived or were checked in. If someone goes back before you, they are most likely seeing a different provider who’s running on a different schedule.

We always try to be as fast and efficient as possible — however, we never know when other concerns, problems, or even emergencies will arise. We want to give every patient the time necessary to make the best possible assessment, provide exceptional care, and, of course, answer any questions they have. We do our best to let you know if your provider is running behind, but feel free to ask for an update if it seems like you have been waiting for a while.

After you’re brought back to the exam room, one of our MAs will get a complete set of vital signs (height, weight, temperature, and blood pressure) and ask some necessary medical history questions. This information allows your provider to get a quick picture of what’s going on before entering the room, especially for sick visits. If you filled out the pre-visit questionnaire before your appointment, we should already have all the information we need — however, your provider may ask similar questions to try to pinpoint things more clearly.

All of our MAs have medical training, so they will watch for any warning signs or “red flags” that come up when taking vitals and reviewing your medical history. If they see a sign for concern — for instance, you initially came in cough and cold symptoms but are now having difficulty breathing — they will get an available provider into the room right away. Situations like this are one reason why you may sometimes have a longer-than-usual wait. 

Once we have all of the information gathered, the MA will leave the exam room and let your provider know that you’re ready to be seen.

It’s your turn! 

Your provider will review your medical history, ask if you have any other questions or concerns, and then begin their exam. After your provider has finished the exam (and made a diagnosis if you are there for a sick visit), you may need additional testing or treatment at the clinic. If so, your provider then alerts your MA, who will prepare and deliver whatever you need to complete the appointment.

Once your exam and treatment are complete, you will head back to the front desk to check out. This is the perfect time to make your next appointment! You can also pick up any forms that need to be completed and/or any prescriptions or referrals that have been printed for you. If you have a balance due or are self-paying for the visit, this is when you will make payment.

After you leave the clinic, we still have more work to do! 

First, your provider completes what we call an “office encounter” by putting all notes and documentation into your medical record. Once these visit notes are complete, you can see a summary of them in your patient portal account. (The summary is usually available by the end of the day, but could take up to 2-3 days to appear for various reasons.)

Next, the visit notes are reviewed by our posters — the MD Family Clinic staff members who attach charges to bills and make sure they’re correct — before our billers submit them to your insurance company. Our billers then follow the charges and update your account after payment is received. 

We may not know until that time if certain charges or parts of your bill are covered by your insurance plan. If you still have a balance due, our billers will automatically process your account (if you have a credit card on file) or prepare and send you a paper bill.

There’s another important group of people who you may not encounter in the clinic, but speak to frequently on the phone: our amazing clinical advice team. This group of MAs, licensed practical nurses, and registered nurses works together to answer your questions and concerns by phone. They can usually handle most issues themselves, but may consult with a provider to get you the best possible care advice.

All members of our clinical advice team have medical training, so they’re the only ones besides our providers who can schedule family telemedicine visits or refer you to the ER if necessary. Any care advice they discuss with you is added to your medical record, where it can be accessed at all MD Family Clinic locations.

Our phones are monitored 24/7, 365 days a year. So even when the clinics are closed, you can still reach a member of our clinical advice team. Just call, follow the prompts, and either our on-call team or our answering service will be ready to help you.