Attendance and Scheduling Policies (Updated!)

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REGULAR SCHEDULING
     When a patient starts services at Center Associates, they are scheduled for their first initial appointment with a therapist or med provider. At the end of that appointment, they may schedule up to three therapy appointments and/or one medication appointment in the future. Each time they come for an appointment, another appointment can be added when they leave. A patient may have 3 therapy appointments and/ or one medication management appointment scheduled in advance.
    24-hour notice is requested for cancelling appointments so that we can ensure that we can serve all of our patients well. The patient should let us know as soon as possible when they cannot make a scheduled appointment.  This helps us fill that slot with a patient from our wait list.

HOW THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AFFECTED SCHEDULING
     Our typical attendance policy is that if a patient misses 3 appointments in the previous 12 months, they will be placed on "Walk-in" status. They will get a letter in the mail stating that they have been put on Walk-in Status.
     Starting in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, we paused our policy of keeping track of missed appointments since there was so much confusion about whether appointments were in person or telehealth and families were more in crisis. A year later now, it is a time to return to making sure both we as an office and you as the patient honor the time we set aside for your appointments. 
Starting April 19th, 2021, we will resume tracking no-show appointments. If you do not call to cancel your appointment ahead of time and do not show up to either your telehealth or in-person appointment, the following policy will apply: 

First Missed Appointment: You may reschedule the appointment without any restrictions.
Second Missed Appointment: You may reschedule the appointment without any restrictions. 
Third Missed Appointment: You will be placed on "walk-in" status. 

"WALK-IN" STATUS 
     "Walk-In" status means that your future appointments will be cancelled and you will not be able to schedule appointments ahead of time. However, other options are  available for seeing a therapist or med provider:

• You can call any day to see if any same-day appointments are available. Your regular provider may be available, or you may decide to see a different provider that has an opening in order to get an appointment. 9:00 a.m. is a great time to call, after we've recieved many cancellation messages for the day. 
• You can request that you be put on your provider's wait list, where our staff will call you if there is an opening that day.

     If you are on "walk-in" status and would like to be able to schedule appointments again, you can come to a same-day appointment to create a plan for keeping scheduled appointments and being removed from "walk-in" status. Typically we request that you attend 3 same-day appointments before removing you from "walk-in," and placing you back on regular scheduling. If another appointment is missed after that (so that you continue to have more than 3 missed appointments after 4/19/21), you will be put back on "walk-in" status.