Office Procedures

Appointment Procedures 

To ​schedule an appointment, call the office at (609) 419-0123.
Our staff will be happy to accommodate your request.

New patient evaluation appointments are conducted in-person at our office in Princeton.  We ask that the patient complete a series of psychiatric and medical history forms, which consists of several different sets of symptom questions. These scales aid the clinical staff in determining the type and severity of the clinical difficulty that the patient is experiencing.

These scales are emailed ahead of time and requested to be returned 3 to 7 days before the appointment.  There may be additional screens or tests requested after if clinically indicated.

At the appointment, the clinician will meet with the patient in-person for 50 to 60 minutes. During this evaluation the patient will share their psychiatric history and current symptoms and concerns. The clinician will then make a diagnosis and offer a treatment plan. Fees for services are reviewed when appointments are scheduled.

If the appointment is for a minor, the initial visit consists of two separate appointments. The first appointment is with the parent or legal guardian for 25 minutes. The second appointment is initially with the minor alone followed with the parent joining, lasting for 50 or 60 minutes. 

Follow up medication management appointments may be conducted over telemedicine for most of the annual visits.  Our video appointments are over the Doxy.me site, which is a secure, HIPAA compliant video platform. Patients are emailed instructions and a link to each clinicians’ secure URL waiting room (“queue”) where they check in a few minutes before the scheduled appointment. This process will be very similar to coming to our office. They will be greeted by a reception member, who will confirm that the audio and video is working correctly on both ends or aid in resolving. Patients will be placed back in the queue until the clinician brings them in. After the session, the patient will return to the queue until the reception member checks them out. Check out procedure will include scheduling a follow up appointment, confirming where medication orders will be sent and payment information. Medications will be electronically prescribed to the patient’s pharmacy, fee slips, and receipts will be emailed to the patients.

Patients will receive a phone call and email reminding them of an upcoming appointment 3 to 5 days prior.  If a message is left, patients are instructed to call back or reply to the email confirming the appointment.
Our clinicians use metrics (Measurement Based Care clinical scales) to measure symptom improvement. For those patients directed to complete clinical scales, they will be an attachment in the email reminder sent to the patient. We request the completed scales be sent back the evening before the appointment date.

The in-person appointments are required once or twice annually depending on the treatment protocol. There is a limit of one additional person accompanying patients in the clinical rooms. At the end of the in-person appointments, patients will check out at the reception counter, where they will schedule their next appointment, confirm pharmacy information and make a payment.

We have found that patient medication refills are off cycle from their appointments. In order to synchronize refills, we are asking patients to have their medication supply list available at their appointment to ensure patients have enough medications to last until their next appointment.  


Importance of In-Person or Video Appointment 

Just as we use the clinical scales to evaluate a patient's clinical status when they come in for an assessment, we use other tools to assess how they are doing and how they are responding to treatment.

Another clinical tool we use is a Mental Status assessment. This mental status assessment requires clinical observation of patient's appearance, demeanor and affect among other things we observe for.  A person’s affect is a visual presentation of the person’s mood, manner and interactions. To best assess this in patients, our clinicians rely on a patient’s visual presentation, which is assessed either in-person or over a video call. As such, phone-only sessions are only conducted infrequent-ly when a visual connection is not possible due to unpreventable circumstances as they impede a complete mental status evaluation.

We have an expectation that patients will be available and prepared to come in-person at least once or twice annually. All other appointments not in-person must be a conducted over our video telemedicine link, Doxy.me. If patients are experiencing connection issues with their devices (computers, tables, or smartphones) these will need to be resolved before the appointment time or the appointment will need to be rescheduled.
​
​We ask that our patients assure their devices are in working order shortly after confirming their appointment. We suggest the patient not wait until their appointment time to confirm their devise’s connection. 

Medication Refills

We have found that automated pharmacy refill requests frequently are for medications that have been discontinued, the dose has been changed or the patient does not need a refill. We ask that patients call our office directly (609) 419-0123, to request any refill orders.

We request that patients contact the office before 3:00pm on Monday – Friday for refill requests. Requests received after 3:00pm will be completed the next business day. Refill requests will not be made over the weekend. We direct patients to make their refill requests 7 days before their last medication dose.
​
We aim to process refill requests within 1 to 2 days, but specific drug classes, such as controlled substances, require they be sent directly by the licensed clinician. Each clinician has time allocated in their schedule when in the office.