Prescriptions and Referrals to Specialists

A new prescription or referral to a specialist usually requires an office visit first.

For prescription renewals, please call your pharmacist with the prescription number and the pharmacist will call us if necessary for approval, unless you get your prescriptions filled in our office. It may take up to 3 days to complete the research and paperwork for a refill.

We do offer many non-abuseable prescription generic and brand-name drugs to patients at their time of visit or as refills as a convenience from our in-office pharmacy. You pay the same-or-less copay as you would at most pharmacies. You are welcome to take your prescription form out for filling at an outside pharmacy if desired.

Please do not contact our office for refills unless you get your prescriptions filled here as it may cause additional delays. Call the pharmacy where you had your last prescription filled. After you call the pharmacy, you may be contacted by our office to schedule an appointment if it has been too long since the original prescription or if close supervision or testing is necessary. Otherwise we will reply to the pharmacy with your refill authorization. Calling our office to check on refill-progress causes us to pull your paperwork out of line every time to check on it, after which it might go to the end of the line again and be further delayed!

Please call before you run out of medicine. Be sure to plan ahead for weekends, travel needs or insurance company delays. Prescriptions can be difficult or impossible to renew on short notice or during a weekend when the provider on-call does not have your medical chart. Thus, refills will not be processed after hours or on weekends. Mail-In prescriptions for remote patients will be written only once a year unless your pharmacy plan changes. Please try to coordinate all your refills at one time.

For specialist referral, check your current insurance company Benefits Booklet for a list of authorized specialists. They change frequently, and your Booklet has the latest information. We don't have the Booklets, but you can get one from your employer.

About Insurance
Prescription insurance-payment or specialist-referral authorization by your insurance plan may take up to two weeks for the insurance company to do all their paperwork back-and-forth with us, especially for newer or more expensive medicines or doctors. We focus on your health care, and provide you with what we believe is the best prescription or referral for you, at the time of your appointment. We do not profit from which prescription we write for you, or to which specialist we refer. Employers change insurance plans, and insurance plans change pharmacy-benefits and specialist-membership all the time, to save money. We cannot possibly keep track of all the insurance company changes every year. Your best option might be to pay for the first prescription or specialist-visit yourself right-away, so that you can have the benefit of the prescription or specialist until your insurance company finishes the paperwork, then reimburses you. If you are having a lot of problems with your insurance company not covering visits and prescriptions, or delaying your authorizations, you might want to select a different insurance company, or talk to your employer about it.

If you would like to learn more about insurance company and employer tactics to reduce pharmacy benefits and costs, go to Insurance Drug Benefits

If you would like to check out your insurance company's Report Card, go to NCQA

©Bay Area Family Practice Inc. A Medical Group, 1850 Sullivan Ave, Suite 210, Daly City CA 94015 (next to Seton Medical Center)